Deep Down In The Hollow Ground
by Peta2
Summary: No one is quite sure how much time has passed since the fall of the prison. All they know is the reality of always moving on, always surviving, whatever cost it might bring. At least they mostly found each other, but for those they've lost along the way, there is a chasm that can barely be filled. Caryl story.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Well, hello all. I'm in knitting hyper-drive right now, but this little idea slammed into me and I couldn't get it out of my head, so I thought, hell, why not share it? Let me know what you think.

Part One

"Man, this place is freaking me out." Glenn shuddered as he walked down the middle of the deserted street, flanked on one side by Daryl and Michonne on the other. The rest of their party, Sasha, Tyreese and Rick, were mirroring them at the opposite end. The place was eerily silent, except for the gentle brush of branch against branch in the few trees that remained in the development.

"It's definitely creepy. I'll give you that." Michonne grinned at him, made an over-exaggerated zombie face and then smirked at him behind Daryl's back. The hunter turned on them, scowling and both Glenn and Michonne quit their goofing off lest Major Daryl get twisted panties over anyone having a bit of fun. As soon as his eyes were once again trained ahead, scanning the deserted houses, Glenn broke and led Michonne into a quick release of chuckles.

Daryl stalled, glaring at them both. "Shut it, the pair of ya. We got no idea what's in these houses."

"Yeah, but they're in the houses, not out here," he couldn't help point out helpfully. "They can't open doors, you know." Glenn wasn't intentionally pushing, but he seriously wished Daryl would lighten up. Ever since they'd fled the prison so many months ago now, he'd been Captain Serious. He'd never had much of a sense of humour in the first place, but now he was downright dour, taking his role as leader completely to heart. Glenn wasn't going to deny he was an excellent one, but he'd seen what being a full-time leader could do to a guy, and a quick glance over his shoulder could remind him if he was ever stupid enough to forget it.

"It's inside the houses where we're goin', dumbass," Daryl said, but where once there might have been an underlying hardness, now there was just apathy and it made Glenn nervous. Daryl was always focused on the task at hand, ruling a run with a fierce rigidity that had meant more than once they'd escaped with their lives from tight spots where it could so easily have gone south. He knew he should be grateful for the emotionless concentration, but all it did was make him nervous. They'd been running on near empty for months since the prison fell, slowly finding the rest of their group and trying to find a new permanent home, but it was easier said than done, and Glenn knew it. He also knew that, while they'd learned so much from past mistakes and had managed to survive this last interlude on the run a whole lot better than the last, it had been emotionally more devastating to do it without key members of their group. He still held Maggie at night when she woke up crying, and some nights his ears rang with Beth's muffled whimpers, and he himself had succumbed to the hot burn of tears. Hershel was not just a member lost, he was a father brutally taken, and none of them had quite come to grips with it.

Glenn chanced a sideways glance at Daryl, noticed the wrinkles squinting always into the sun were causing, the bags that got darker and heavier as they settled deeper beneath his eyes, the coldness that he hadn't quite been able to understand until Maggie finally told him about Carol. His friend was operating on autopilot in order to chase the pain of rapid losses away, clinging to his responsibilities to keep him afloat.

"What's the brief, boss?" Michonne abruptly stopped walking, forcing Daryl to do the same or risk leaving her behind.

"Anything that'll get us through winter," their fearless leader grumbled, casting a skittish, surveying glance around the cul-de-sac. "Clothes, blankets, any meds you can find are priorities, but if you see anything else you think we can use, grab it." Daryl started walking again, quickly coming to a stop at the last house in the street. "Anything you find, bring it out and leave it in a pile out here. We'll drive the truck down and load it all at once. Let's do it." They parted and took on their duties like a well-oiled machine, a house each. In, clear, search, retrieve, dump. Their method was fast and furious, methodical and it always gained results. The bounty was piling up in the middle of the road and after an hour of hard work, they reconvened to decide whether to keep going or decide they had enough to take back and keep everyone in their camp happy.

Glenn felt itchy for some reason, like his feet couldn't stay still and he needed to be out searching. Michonne re-joined them, her arms laden with coats still on hangers that she'd liberated from someone's closet and Glenn admired a sleeve of leather that poked through the bundle. She was just about to open her mouth and say something when a cry echoed through the stillness of the street and all three of them froze.

"Did you hear that?" Glenn asked, already turning in circles trying to work out where the noise had come from. Before he could worry about it, more cries erupted through the air and the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end.

"That's a baby," Michonne and Daryl said at the same time and then all three of them were in action, keenly hunting down the sound before it got loud enough to attract walkers.

The haunting wails gathered steam, furious bluster erupting loud enough to be clear as day out in the street, helping them to finally pinpoint the right place, Daryl brutally shouldering open the door instead of trying to calmly jiggle the lock like he usually did.

"It's a newborn," Michonne enlightened them and Glenn frowned.

"How can you tell that?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"They cry different. Easy to tell when a baby is new," she said with a shrug, her eyes bright yet distant and Glenn figured he knew her well enough by now to know when to back off and pretend he didn't notice when her emotions were heightened and she retreated within herself.

The cries were even louder now, but instead of coming from upstairs, the sound bounced through enough walls to dull the piercing fury of it.

"Must be a basement," Daryl muttered, already looking for the door. As soon as he found it he wrenched it open, narrowly missing an axe swinging into his groin as Michonne grabbed the back of his vest and yanked him backwards.

"What the fuck?" He was breathing heavy from the near miss, subtly cupping his family jewels in a moment of protective countenance, and then hesitantly, carefully sidled back up to the door. Michonne was beside him, shining her flashlight down the stairs into a dark, dingy room just barely big enough to house a family of fleas.

"Oh shit, there's someone down there. Looks like she's passed out." She thrust past Daryl and Glenn and was already half down the stairs before Daryl risked following, eying the structure for any more surprises. Michonne was bending down over the baby, then checking the woman covered in blood and birth fluids, her arms limp around the baby trying to protect it even while she was out cold. Michonne gasped, stepped back before decisively diving into the situation.

Daryl finally stumbled down the last steps, shocked into immobility as he took in the scene. Michonne was busy dealing with the baby's cord, severing it from the afterbirth, clamping it and then wrapping the child in one of the smaller blankets that had obviously been gathered for the purpose before standing and handing the baby, now strangely quiet since it had been touched by human hands, over to Daryl. He took it as if mute, his wide, haunted eyes pulled to the half-exposed woman on a filthy mattress on the floor. There was blood everywhere—it coated the inside of her thighs and the bottom of her dress but was soaked heavily into the mattress beneath her. Her hands and arms were red and her face was pale, but he could see the subtle rise and fall of her chest and his own ached in sympathy.

"She okay?" he asked huskily, still barely believing he held this new, squalling thing in his arms while it's mother lay unconscious on the floor. "She gonna make it?"

Glenn stood to the side, dumbfounded as Michonne worked, trying to clean away the blood with the materials and water that had obviously been gathered for the birthing event.

"Doesn't look like she's hemorrhaging," she reported, her voice shaking. "She's probably just exhausted. Who knows how long her labour was." She pulled the dress down, then picked up the new mother's arm and simultaneously checked for a pulse in her wrist and her neck. "Pulse is strong," she confirmed, and then all three of them let out an unsteady breath of relief. Michonne glanced up at Daryl, saw he wasn't doing so hot and turned toward Glenn. She didn't have to say a word.

"I'll go back and get the truck." He bolted out the door without a backward glance. There was already enough tension in that basement, he figured. He didn't need to be there while Daryl dealt with finally finding Carol and a baby that none of them had had a clue she'd been carrying.

XXXXXXXXX

AN2: Would love some input on gender and names here, if anyone has any ideas?


	2. Chapter 2

AN: WOW! Just…Holy crap! It was HUGE to wake up this morning and find so many reviews. It felt like Christmas morning, I was so excited! I've replied to a few and will go finish that after I've posted this. I'm feeling a bit scared now that this chapter won't measure up!

The name suggestions have been great! Nothing has quite hit me yet, though. I am thinking Carol would want something traditional, meaning strength, survival, fighting spirit. Keep making suggestions!

Very importantly, I need to give massive kisses and hugs to Atoizzard for helping me talk this idea out and being my official beta for this fic! Now, on we go!

Part Two

His hands had been too clammy to hold the baby, and when Michonne peeled the little thing out of his grip, they shook so hard he felt the vibration right through to the base of his spine. He could hardly believe it, that she was right there, obviously drained, half-starved and who knew what else. As he stumbled toward her, dropping hard to his knees at her side with Michonne fussing around them both, she didn't stir, not even once, not even to do something as miniscule as to flutter an eyelid.

"Think she's been holed up in here a while," Michonne observed carefully, watching him almost as closely as she was watching Carol. "Place was booby trapped."

He remembered. That axe would have damn near split his dick in half if Michonne hadn't pulled him back in the nick of time. He nodded to show he was listening but be damned if he could get his voice to work. Words seemed to have evaporated off of his tongue the longer he looked at her. She was too pale, her skin looking waxen and dry from being dehydrated. He reached out a trembling hand to place against her cheek, blowing out a gush of hot air as the relief that she lacked any kind of fever from what he could tell hit him with more force than he'd been prepared for.

He couldn't tear his eyes off her, never wanted to stop looking at her for fear she'd disappear on him once again.

"You think she had a name picked out for this little guy?" The baby moved in uncoordinated jerks and spasms in Michonne's arms and Daryl was briefly distracted, looking over to the softly-wrapped bundle with a pure lack of comprehension in his expression.

"The fuck was she doin' hidin' out alone down here?" The situation mystified him and he was failing to wrap his brain around the concept that for all this time, Carol had been alone. She hadn't found another group to share her skills or her heart with, she hadn't been out there looking for them, she'd been allowing a little parasite to hijack her body and she'd bunkered down completely alone and birthed it, and now she was unconscious and not even reacting to the soft timbre of their voices so close to her.

"She was giving birth, Daryl," Michonne clucked with forced humour. "She was as smart about it as she could be for being alone."

He was shaking his head, shaggy locks stinging his eyes. "Why was she alone, though? We've come across people. There's people out there to find. Ain't too hard when you start lookin'."

Michonne dropped down to a crouch beside him, cradling the newborn babe gently as she tipped the vision toward Daryl, forcing him to look. "Maybe she felt she couldn't trust people to keep her and this little one safe."

Trust. What did they have if they couldn't trust those people around them to have their back? To give two shits if they were hurt or struggling? Didn't seem so hard, then, to consider Rick probably destroyed her desire to trust another living soul for the rest of her life for tossing her out on her ear.

The man hadn't exactly been Daryl's friend since the day he'd confessed to what he'd done to Carol and their world had gone up in smoke mere minutes later. Daryl hadn't been able to get his head straight for days after fleeing the prison, Beth under his wing, but it had taken months before Rick was able to step back up with any semblance of rationality after suffering more losses than any man should have to bear. Only, Daryl bore it, and had once excused Rick's need to escape and ignore as much as possible the relentless horror that kept landing on their doorstep. There was still a level of respect between the two men, and Rick was regaining his strength more and more as time went by, but it had been made more than clear that Rick had no right to call the shots anymore. His word was never going to be law again. Now that Carol was within arm's reach, Daryl was certain it was going to pile a new stress onto the relationship, maybe even rebuild that resentment and anger he'd buried for so long to a power that reminded him of the bitterness and sadness he'd suffered through in those early days when she'd been just gone.

"Fuck. Rick's probably goin' to argue about her comin' back with us." He stared helplessly at the baby, flicked a glance at Michonne then turned back to Carol, swallowing hard once he noticed he'd grasped her limp hand without even realising it, his thumb pad rolling over her flesh like a siren calling it's mate to remember, to react, to say hello and put him the fuck out of his misery.

"Then we best get these two up to the truck before Rick works out what's going on." Michonne didn't wait for him, stood smoothly with the babe cradled in one arm while she set to gathering the supplies Carol had collected together for this new little person into a large, zippered bag, and then she carried both up the stairs to the awaiting truck.

Daryl was left to look at the woman he'd slowly accepted he'd probably never see again and allowed the sting in his eyes. He clamped his lids down tight, trying to experience the pain of his grief without any of the evidence, and then he puffed out a breath, drew another one in violently to his lungs, and squeezed her hand.

"Carol," he almost whispered, shocking himself when his voice actually cracked in the middle. "Need you to wake up now, sweetheart. Gonna get you somewhere safe. Ain't gonna let no one hurt you again." And he meant it. Anyone even wanting to try was going to have to get through him first and that kind of shit wasn't going to get the chance to breathe air.

She didn't even flinch at his soft words of promise, her exhaustion obviously so deep there was no dragging her from it until she was ready, and a shiver ran over his skin. If they hadn't have come along, heard that baby exercising its right to tell the world it had arrived, the house would have likely been swarmed by walkers within the day, a hungry, decaying force of death that would have made it impossible for her to get the little one and herself out alive. If they hadn't happened along, she'd have died alone, just her and a tiny, squalling baby to mark her exit from the world and he'd have known none of it.

Daryl lifted her out of the tangle of blankets and cradled her body like she was precious. Michonne had covered her earlier, thrust some wadded cloths between her legs to stem the blood flow, and then she'd stepped back and left Daryl alone with her. Emotion was a curved ball in his throat, but he gulped it down, refusing to endanger them further by losing it now. He held her, giving just one brief moment over to such impactful relief that his knees went weak as he nuzzled his face against her collarbone and made whispered promises into her neck. Then he gathered himself together, held her in his arms, ignored how light she felt compared to the last time he'd carried her like this, and he ascended the stairs.

Glenn had packed the truck already by the time he got there, Michonne sitting in the passenger seat holding the baby. She stared at Daryl, obviously deeply conflicted, but at that moment he didn't give a rat's ass about her issues. She could hold the baby and suck it up while he cradled Carol in his arms in the back seat of the truck. Glenn jumped in then turned the vehicle around, gesturing to Rick and Tyreese that they were leaving and then gunning the engine to take them back to camp.

She was out like a light and no amount of prodding, or spoken whispers into her ear were enough to rouse her. Daryl worried, his expression a wary frown. The baby in the front started to fret and he saw the exact second Michonne stiffened. He knew she had an aversion to babies—kids as well, but babies especially. He didn't have arms for it right now, not when he had Carol and he didn't know what to expect. His heart was thumping too hard in his chest and he was too fast making the connections that told him how it was nothing but dumb luck that they'd run across her, that had it been any other day, any other time, if she'd not awoken and eventually fed the kid, if the baby had continued crying and walkers had heeded the call of fresh blood until there were so many her single axe would have been next to useless against the onslaught… if not for all that, they'd never have found her. He'd never have known how close he'd come, and the pure agony of that possibility did what seeing her hadn't initially done…made his walls crack down the centre, allowing the ghosts enough purchase to finish tearing them down.

His heart had been hollow for so long. It had started the day Rick told him he'd banished Carol to the unknown, his haunted expression revealing to Daryl just how much the former leader expected her to perish on her own, despite the words of fake confidence that she'd do just fine, that she was a survivor. Daryl looked down at her, the soft lines around her eyes smoothed out in sleep, her lips dry and cracked from dehydration, smeared lines of blood coating her neck, probably transferred during the time she'd struggled to get that baby out of her body. He tried to be stoic, uncomfortably aware that he wasn't alone, but there was no holding back the knot of tears in his throat as his nose stung and drops fell from his eyes. He threaded his fingers through hers and drew her hand up to his mouth, kissing her knuckles one by one, relieved beyond measure that he could do this for her. No matter what the circumstances were, no matter how this had happened to make her bring a child into the world, he was here to help and to make it better. To keep them both _safe _the only way a Dixon knew how.

As the baby started to wail, Daryl finally gave in to the turmoil brought on by its presence. A boy. Carol had a son. The irony was like an acid burn in his gut. She was all woman, yet she got herself a boy. Got herself a man, too, by all appearances, but Daryl was ferociously fighting what that knowledge was making him feel. It didn't matter. Whatever she'd done, whoever had done this to her, none of it mattered as long as he was there to make sure she was fine. Make sure the kid survived coming into this world, and his mama continued to thrive.

"You think it was someone at the prison?" Glenn asked, seemingly keying into his thoughts and Daryl bit back a snarl. Last thing he wanted to do was discuss where the child might have come from. The choices were both of them more than he could handle.

"How long since we left?" Michonne asked, and Glenn shrugged.

"It was always Hershel that kept track of the days, knew what date it was. No one's really bothered even keeping a running tally of days since…" Glenn droned off, leaving them both to be suddenly shunted back to that day and the horror of seeing the best of men beheaded by the worst.

"So, it could be someone from the prison…or it could have happened after." Michonne's voice was cold, no doubt tainted by memory as well as too intimate a knowledge of what might have occurred once Carol was left out on her own.

"It don't matter." His voice was hoarse as he weighed in on the subject. "Ain't nobody gonna go askin' her shit, makin' her explain things she got no reason to share. She's back, and she's brought a youngin' with her, an' that's all that matters."

Glenn was nodding his head, obviously in complete agreement with Daryl and for that, the hunter couldn't help but shudder with relief as he sank back against the seat and rubbed his spare hand across his face, trying to wipe away his anxiety and apathy toward the others before they made it back to camp.

"There are some that aren't going to like it," Michonne warned as she lifted the babe and settled him across her shoulder, flinching as his newborn howl erupted against her eardrum.

"Hell, each of 'em knows where the fuckin' door is," Daryl spat, already trying to pre-empt the arguments that he just knew were going to greet them the second anyone recognised Carol.

"Daryl, you know it won't be that easy," she chided, lifting the child away and patting his back with the soothing knowledge of a mother. "They won't accept her in a house when we're all on top of each other. The prison might have worked, but you know some of them really turned on her when they found out what happened."

Daryl noticed as Glenn's body tensed, his hands gripping the steering wheel extra tight. "I'll make sure Maggie stays out of it," he promised, and Daryl felt like his first hurdle had been cleared.

"Thanks, man." His voice was choked and wobbly, so he cleared his throat, running thoughts through his head at lightning speed. "Won't matter. I'm not leavin' her again. If ya'll vote that she has to go, I'm goin' too." Vote. It had been the first thing he'd done, making sure that nothing like Carol's banishment would ever happen again in such secrecy.

"Nobody's gonna vote her out," Glenn stated, the finality betraying a hard edge he'd kept hidden for quite a while. Hershel's death had affected them all in different ways—for Glenn, it had obliterated the hard shell that had hidden away his youthful exuberance and naivety. Daryl wanted to be glad but he was fighting through his own shell that had slammed back into place, leaving him bereft of good will and empathy toward most of them.

Camp wasn't close by so by the time they pulled up outside the abandoned house on the outskirts of town, the baby was red-faced and furious and making sure everyone around knew about it. It caused a sensation in the camp, all eyes following it as Michonne dogged Daryl's path up the steps of the house and into a bedroom, finally depositing the infant on the bed beside where Daryl carefully laid Carol, and then she walked out without saying a word, leaving Daryl to sit and stare at them both. He stared until the sun went down, barely allowing himself to breathe as he scooped up Carol's son and did his best to calm the little guy down. It almost bothered him that his touch worked, that his zen was in good working order still, while outside the room, voices and personalities erupted into a shit storm of opinions and anger that he didn't want to get involved with. He chose to let them play it out, distancing himself the best he could while he kept the little one quiet and made sure Carol didn't disappear. And if a tear or two dripped off his chin onto the innocent life he held in his arms, neither of them reacted enough to acknowledge it.

**Crazstiz: **I love strong names, too, though my kids all have Celtic names.

**GG: **It's a shocker entrance to the world, isn't it? I'm sure that situations like this had to have happened frequently, and with the nature of it all, it's not surprising that we don't see many babies on the show. I'm glad to have you on board with this one, and here's the next chapter already! My kids are almost on holidays so I should be able to finally get some writing done on all my fics. I feel excited about that!

**Guest: **Here's another chapter and I'm going to go right away and start the next one ;)


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Holy cow, peeps! You guys are making my head spin. I am so, so grateful to all of you for reviewing and for enjoying my little fic and I truly hope you all continue to do so. Also, just want to write a little warning here…I don't like character bashing. I try to portray characters as best I can to how they seem to me on screen, but sometimes we need to work through some stuff to get there. So, if it appears I am being overly harsh or destructive with a character, please believe there is an objective in mind. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and let me continue to know what your thoughts are!

~ Megan

Part Three

Maggie was waiting for him on the steps of the house they'd called home for the past week. She was sitting, but as soon as the car came into view, she'd popped right up off those steps like her pants were on fire. Rick had already had the sense that something was up by the way Glenn had pealed out of the street they'd been scavenging without saying a word to him or the others, but seeing Maggie and the strange expression on her face, he knew that whatever was up, it was big. He didn't expect that Glenn was injured, not with him driving the truck out of there, but immediately his thoughts turned to Daryl and Michonne and a ball of worry that never seemed to fall from his shoulders, stirred up anew and slithered swiftly down his spine like a serpent. He felt cold as ice, ready to step back emotionally to deal with whatever Maggie wanted him to deal with, knowing that he was powerless without Daryl's say so anyway, but trying to gear up for the possibility that he might have to step in after all.

And then he thought of Carl and he felt his heart slow and his blood pressure drop so low that his eyes blurred and he had to stay in his seat until he recovered. Sasha and Ty were already out and unloading the trunk of their bounty but Maggie hadn't taken a step closer to them at all, just stayed put and waited. Rick finally blinked away his weakness, found his feet and made it to her the same time as the siblings, hoping to step around her and ignore whatever problem there was until he had some more time to acclimatise himself to the rush of anxiety. There was no such luck as she held up her hand like a stop sign to stall the three of them.

"There's somethin' ya'll should know before you go on inside."

Rick held steady, one foot on the first step as he ducked his head and drew in an annoyed breath.

"What is it?" Sasha asked, taking the lead and when Rick glanced up, she was looking at him with concern.

Maggie took a deep breath and Rick realised she was angry, not upset like he'd first suspected. "Daryl found Carol. She's inside—"

"Well she can get her ass back outside," Sasha said, an explosive burst of anger making her dump the bundle of clothes in her hands in the wild garden beside the steps as she prepared to storm the inside of the house.

"Wait." Maggie stood in front of her, carefully watching all three of them. "She's not conscious, so like it or not, she's not goin' anywhere just yet. They found her in the basement of one of the houses and…" Her eyes swung to Rick, an appeal of some sort in that gathering storm but he was failing to interpret it. "She's just given birth. There's a baby in there an' Daryl's standin' guard."

The news had about as much impact as the Governor's tank running down their fences while it blew the prison apart.

"She was pregnant?" Rick choked out, his knees suddenly going out from under him. "I banished her and she was having a baby?"

"We don't _know _that," Maggie hissed, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her mouth set in an unforgiving hard line. "It's been so long…maybe she met someone once she left—"

"Or maybe she was attacked and raped," Tyreese interjected bitterly, his shoulders slumped under the weight of guilt that he had no right to carry.

"Don't you feel sorry for her." Sasha had her hands on her hips, her usual warm chocolate brown eyes flinty and cold as she burned with resentment. "She _killed_ Karen."

Rick covered his face with shaking hands as he sat on his ass on the front lawn. This couldn't be happening; he'd let it all go, hidden it, buried it beneath so many other traumas that had hit them one after the other since they'd been back on the run and all of a sudden he cursed himself for forgetting. For allowing it to slip through his fingers when he should have tried to right the wrong he'd created, all because his head wasn't right. Discarding anyone and anything that tried to push him back into the openness of a world that wanted to eat them alive.

A baby's plaintive wailing cut through the tension, the invisible strings of it yanking Rick back up onto his feet, the haunting memories of Judith echoing in his head. The reality of the situation seemed to shock Sasha and she rocked back a step, suddenly realising that a baby wasn't deserving of her anger and distrust, no matter where it sprang from. The four of them stood solemnly still, listening to the newborn's cries, speechless toward any kind of reaction until suddenly Michonne exploded from the house, coming to an abrupt stop when she saw them all huddled around the front steps. At first she'd seemed to have folded into herself, furiously swiping at her eyes, but now that she'd spied Rick, she stood up straight, her feet planted apart and a glare settling stubbornly in place.

"We need to do a run," she said, staring straight at Rick. "Carol hasn't woken and we need a bottle or something to try and feed the little guy so he'll be quiet."

"Well don't go lookin' at me," Maggie spat out, defiance in every single line of her body.

Michonne turned slowly, looking the girl up and down before her lip curled in a way that pushed Maggie a little off her self-imposed pedestal until she was slipping backwards.

"I wasn't."

"I'll go with you," Tyreese offered, a soft smile melting the look of confusion and latent grief from his face and Michonne nodded, pushing roughly past Maggie and Sasha so she could get to the car.

"Tyreese!" Sasha grabbed his arm, making him face her so he was forced to see the turmoil of betrayal and bitterness she was unable to hide. "That woman killed your girlfriend. You could have had your own kids with Karen—how can you put yourself at risk just to save her baby?"

Tyreese was about to reply when Rick stepped in, broke the hold she had on Tyreese's arm. "You two go on, just be careful," he said, hoping Michonne could see the genuine need he had to do right by Carol. She should, he'd spoken of his regrets to her often enough for her to know that there was something hidden, something he'd kept so long to himself that made him regret his actions that day. They left, leaving Rick in the middle of two women that really wanted Carol gone without giving her a chance to even wake up, to speak or defend herself, and that was his fault. Their distrust and dislike was on him now and it was just another burden he couldn't shake, yet couldn't seem to bear.

"Come on, we need to go talk this out with Daryl."

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"He's small." Lilly finished examining the baby, wrapped him carefully and deposited him back in Daryl's arms. No matter how long she'd been with them, no matter how long it had been since she'd shot Brian in the head, she was still getting used to being around a whole new group of people, and Daryl was the most difficult. He didn't talk to many of them, and when he did the words were filled with purpose and then he was gone, blowing in and out of a person's day based solely on how much information they required from him to get by.

"What's that mean?" His low growl of a voice still set her on edge, and for a moment she wished Tara was finished on watch so she could be here now, shielding her from this situation that seemed a whole hell of a lot deeper and more personal than some pregnant woman being found would normally warrant.

"It means that the baby might have been early, or he could be small because the mother wasn't getting enough to eat. She looks like she's older, too, and that brings with it a whole new set of problems. He looks healthy, though," she admitted with a shrug, eager to move away from the pinching glare the redneck aimed at her as he held the baby, his body instinctively rocking him to quiet with a rhythm wholly unexpected for someone as harsh and brash as she'd learned Daryl Dixon to be.

She moved to the bed, quickly lifting the woman's eyelids and flashed a light in them, checking the dilation and nodding when it all seemed normal enough. She was just a nurse, but Daryl was making her nervous, hovering around her like he was on a personal mission to take care of this woman himself. She checked her pulse and then hung up an IV bag, the third last one they had managed to salvage when a party had gone back to the prison to gather up anything they could get to without being pinned down by the flood of walkers wandering around the building now that the fences were downed. When she finished and turned around, she squealed a little, startled at how close Daryl was to her, peering over her shoulder at the woman with a look of such raw pain in his eyes that Lilly felt it hurtling down into her own soul.

"She gonna be all right?" There was naked fear in his voice as he made the appeal to her and Lilly looked back at the woman, took a good look and wondered why it mattered to him so much.

"Yeah, I think so. She's just a little dehydrated. She had a tear from the birth. It's not bad but I've sewn it up to minimise infection. I think she might have been in labour for a long time—she's just exhausted. I wouldn't be surprised if she's awake soon, though. Mothers have this innate sensor for their babies and this little guy is going to need to feed soon." She shunned her own hurt at the thought of motherhood, clamping down the memories of her own little girl fast before tears began to surface.

His gaze flew up to hers and she read shock in every rigid line of his body. "Shit, I gotta go out and get somethin' for him. Formula or somethin'. Jesus, can't believe we're doin' this again."

Lilly shrugged helplessly. Obviously it would be better for all if the mother could feed the child herself, but who knew for sure if she'd be able to?

"Michonne and Tyreese have gone out to look now." Rick's voice breaking into their drama from the doorway surprised them both and he nodded nervously toward Daryl, his gaze slipping to the little wrapped bundle in Daryl's arms. "So, you finally found her."

Lilly fled the room, quickly sliding past Rick in the doorway.

"She never said she was pregnant when I…" He couldn't even say the words—kicked her out of the prison. Banished her from her home and loved ones. It left a knot of self-loathing that he just couldn't choke down, no matter how much he swallowed it.

Daryl's stormy gaze darkened. "Either she didn't know, or somethin' happened after."

The horrors of what 'after' might have entailed stuck in both their heads and something ugly sprouted out of it. Daryl turned away, rocking the baby that had started to nuzzle his tiny fist as he grunted with mounting hunger.

"What are you gonna do?"

Daryl turned around so fast that Rick reared back in surprise.

"Take care of her," Daryl spat, his expression hardened with previous perceived failure. "An' this little one. Jus' like I shoulda done all along."

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**My word there were a lot of guest reviewers this time around. I hope you can work out who you all are!**

**Guest 1: **I can't tell you who the father is…that would be THE BIGGEST SPOILER OF THE SEASON *wink wink* They all really have no idea how long they've been gone from the prison. It could be 9 months or it could be five or even a year. It's been a hard road surviving for both the group and Carol and really no one is keeping track, although Carol might be. She knows the truth, afterall!

**Guest 2: **Thank you! Glad you are enjoying it!

**GG: **I think with how Daryl reacted toward Sophia and Judith that paternity doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot to him. Poor Michonne has a lot to work through. I wish to god we knew her backstory. I'm assuming it isn't quite the same as the comic, maybe a baby rather than older girls? I don't know the comics so well, so can't be certain. I considered something to honour T, and even Dale, but I don't think it quite works. I think it was right in the end for Judith to be named something all her own rather than to honour any of their dead. There are just too many dead now I do like Teddy, though. That's super cute!

**Guest 3: **I LOVE that I surprised everyone with that being Carol. I figured everyone would have just expected it with a Caryl fic so that people were surprised just tickles me to death! I am so glad you enjoyed the second chapter as well, and fingers crossed this one works out as well Great to have you on board!


	4. Chapter 4

AN: I really like this chapter. I truly hope you all do, too! I'm unsure if I will get a chapter out for tomorrow as it is my youngest's 4th birthday and we're having a gathering. I will try, though! Keep reviewing. Everything you are telling me is awesome! I've been really moved.

Part Four

She ached. Her body pulsed with pain, her conscious mind latching hold of the knowledge as proof that she wasn't dead. Pain was good, knowing she felt it was even better. Carol tried to move and a whimper rose to her throat, expelling it as quietly as she dared as she tried to settle long enough to allow the rush of memories to beat themselves forth. There was a throbbing burn between her legs and her fingers tingled from the ghost of a memory of soft skin—so soft it could only be a baby's and suddenly it all came hurtling back. Just as she realised her son was gone, she felt the rough touch of an unknown hand and her body lurched itself upright, a scream precariously balanced with the fear of attracting walkers if she released it. She'd learned long ago how to go about her every minute in silence, keeping noise so much to a minimum that she'd sometimes wondered if she still existed. She still knew enough to know that it was just her, that people were gone and no one touched her anymore. Her hand came out and slapped viciously at whoever dared to lay their hand on her, and her voice burst hoarsely, achingly from her throat.

"Don't you dare touch me."

She blinked rapidly, taking in the stunned, frightened expression of the brunette who'd been attending to her, and then she dismissed her in favour of looking for her knife. It was gone, she was somewhere else, and her baby was gone. Her weapons had been taken, and so had her own flesh and blood. Again.

"Where is my son?" she bit out, cringing at the manic tone and the breaking pitch that pealed past dry lips.

"He's fine, I promise." The woman stepped away from the bed, raising her hands as if she was afraid that if Carol had a gun she'd be shot right between the eyes. She was right. Carol wouldn't even hesitate to destroy anyone in this place that might have taken her baby. She didn't push herself to survive and bring that child into the world to have him taken from her now.

"Bring him to me now," she ordered fiercely, sitting up and shuffling forward weakly on the bed as if she was preparing to up and run if they didn't do what she'd requested.

"Of course, I'll go get him now. The others were just worried about him getting hungry."

"I can feed him." She darted a look into every corner of the room, not knowing whether to feel threatened that she was in a bed with a bag of fluids strapped to her arm, or safe. She switched back to the unknown woman, her arms aching to hold her boy, her breasts already attune to his presence and emotion threatened to clog her throat entirely, shredding her last will toward control. "He's my _son."_

The stranger nodded, about to duck out of the room when a shadow was cast over her by the presence of someone entering. Carol looked up, frantically seeking her baby and settled on the man that held her child so carefully in his arms. She'd seen him do it before, with baby Judith, and a tidal wave of emotion almost pitched her from the edge of the bed to the floor.

She swiftly stuffed every remnant need she had to run to him, or beg him to hold her, into a box she refused to ever open again. It wasn't the time to feel anything over seeing Daryl again. It may never be the time to feel anything at all again, she decided, except desperate to see the child her body had nurtured and protected for nine months. She held her arms out, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop them from shaking.

"Give him to me." It wasn't a request and she ignored Daryl's arched eyebrow at her tone; none of it mattered as long as he brought the child to her. He did, making no effort to keep her apart from her offspring and Carol sagged in relief as the tiny thing was finally placed in her arms, tears she had no control over breaking banks like flood waters. She sniffled and choked on sobs as she stared at him, taking in the light brown fuzz on his head, the already clear blue of his eyes, his perfect fingers, milky white skin. It was only then that she allowed herself to believe and hope, finding nothing but perfection about his little face. She lay him on the bed and unwrapped him, counting his toes, running her finger over his belly, marvelling at how his arms were outstretched and his legs trying to run races without his feet even touching the ground. There was no sign, nothing she could see but a healthy baby boy, and he was all hers. She made him and there was nothing anyone was going to do to take him away from her.

A laugh of pure delight erupted from her, and her eyes widened with amazement, not knowing where it had come from. Happiness had been buried so far down inside her for so long she'd forgotten what it meant to feel joy, but she felt it now, and it was pure and unadulterated. Wrapping him up again with the proficiency of someone who knew what they were doing, Carol swept him back up in her arms and brought him with her as she got comfortable on the bed, her back against the headboard, and without any concern for modesty or who might be watching, she undid the buttons of her shirt and watched in fascination as her baby rooted around for her breast and latched onto her nipple like a boy who'd been made for it. Carol laughed again, absolutely delighted, and then dissolved into harsh, gasping sobs.

His little mouth drew hard on her breast, his sucking reflex drawing a tweak of almost erotic pain that she felt tugging in her belly. Carol closed her eyes, wanting to ignore everything else around, ignore the implications of seeing Daryl holding her son, ignoring the pulsing curiosity of why he was here, in some house instead of back at the prison with the others. She shook the thoughts away, not wanting to know, wanting only to have these first few moments with her boy before she had to prepare to leave, to find her way again out on her own.

"He looks damn near perfect." Daryl's voice cut into her determined attempt at ignorance and she flinched.

"No," she replied softly, compelled into a conversation she didn't really want to have. "He's not near perfect, he just _is._"

The side of the bed near her knee dipped down and Carol tensed, her skin already buzzing at the prospect of being so close to Daryl again. She couldn't let it, couldn't let her thoughts take over and be consumed by him again. Leaving him behind when Rick had cast her out of the group had hurt far more deeply than she'd ever thought possible. If he tried to connect with her again, she'd find it almost impossible to break free, and she refused to be broken and weak. It took a tremendous bout of courage to tear her gaze away from her baby and meet Daryl half way, except when she did he wasn't waiting for her to look at him, he was staring at the baby's mouth as it latched around her nipple and massaged her for a mouthful of nutrients. His stare was intent and it made her face burn with embarrassment, as well as a craving so urgent she felt like she was dying. Unable to tear herself away from observing him, she pulled the baby away from her breast, gently held his little chin and rubbed his back until he passed a little gas, then positioned him against her other breast, Daryl all the while staring with a shocked look of wonder splayed right across his face. She contemplated the naked desire she saw there, and despite waiting so long for that kind of indication he felt that way about her, she chose now to shut it down. She had no more room in her life for that kind of hurt.

"There's no point to such longing looks, Daryl. This milk bar is only open to one." She shrivelled a little inside at the instantaneous snapshot of pain he immediately tried to hide as he jumped up from the bed, shook his head and paced a few steps away toward the door. Hardening her heart, Carol did up her buttons and then tucked her little boy under her chin and hummed softly as he muzzled up into her neck and promptly fell into newborn slumber.

A scuffle outside the door caught her attention and before Daryl could move to intercept her, Maggie appeared, her eyes flashing with a fury Carol didn't understand.

"You should go," he said to Maggie, his voice stronger than before, harder, and Carol realised then the depth of feeling behind all his words so far to her. Maggie shrugged past him, moving further into the room and Carol suddenly felt threatened, like her own safety might be in question. Daryl shouted for Glenn through the doorway and outside there was the shuffle of many more feet than Carol had expected and then footsteps almost running toward the room before Glenn burst through the doorway. He threw Carol a sheepish grin, before nodding at her new addition and giving her a thumbs up.

"Don't you leave that baby in here alone with her," Maggie warned darkly, wide eyes glistening wildly. "She's likely to kill it."

The jibe cut through Carol like a jagged knife, leaving pieces of herself exposed that she'd thought she'd built an armour strong as steel around. So, Rick had turned them against her; she shouldn't have been so surprised, or so hurt.

"Get her the fuck out of here," Daryl growled at Glenn and then Maggie was being dragged from the room, far too late because the damage had already been done. Carol watched Daryl as he rubbed a shaking hand across his face, her eyes stinging for her own agony but her heart cracking a little for the weight that he was obviously being crushed under. An unexpected chuckle spilled from his lips, then within a blink he'd perched beside her on the bed again, his expression soft and beseeching as he tried to get her to understand.

"Don't listen to Maggie. She's not coping with shit too well."

She didn't want to know, didn't want to care about the circumstances behind an outburst like the one that had just been aimed at her, designed to wound in the most callous way possible, but Daryl seemed intent to share whether she liked it or not.

"The day Rick told me what he done to you, the Governor attacked." They weren't prepared, she could see it in his eyes, could tell their loss had been great.

"Is that where that girl came from?" She hated herself for asking, wished desperately she could take the words back and continue not caring, keeping her heart aloft from anything that had struck the group she'd spent the most gruelling latter years of her life with, carving out a meaning with people she'd thought loved and cared for her as much as she'd loved and cared for them.

"Lilly?" He squinted at her, unsure and nervous about why she'd ask after someone she didn't even know above any of the others, but Carol didn't want to know who was lost, didn't want to have to grieve for people she'd cared about. She had other concerns now, other family, other priorities and she couldn't allow herself to get sucked in by Maggie's animosity, didn't want to expend energy on people that had been gone from her life for close to a year. "She and her sister were with the Governor. She…lost her little girl. Walker got her while she was waitin' somewhere else during the attack. She put the final bullet in the prick's head."

"Good." She could be relieved about that, happy that at least that chapter was finally dead. It had been a concern of hers that she'd run into Phillip Blake while she was out there on her own, trying to stay alive the best way she knew how, and then when she'd realised she was pregnant, the thought of running into any other survivors at all had brought with it a debilitating terror for the safety of her baby. She'd given up trying to find people, a new home and community, and just did her best to prepare for the birth and hope she could survive it and take care of him. She'd been such a fool. So stupid, thinking she could go through labour and childbirth all on her own. The pain had been excruciating, the effort to expel the tiny body from her womb while checking for the cord around his neck had taken the kind of heroic effort she'd fallen short of, and obviously she'd managed not much more before she'd fallen into unconsciousness. She could have died, fed from her child without even realising it. She could have stayed out of it for too long, and his hungry wails might have brought a herd down on them so fast she'd have had no chance of escaping it. Guilty tears sprung up and engulfed her, leaving her cheeks wet and inflamed.

"How long was I out?" She sounded lost, defeated and Daryl glanced sharply at her, his blue eyes stormy. She'd missed him so much but Carol looked away, scared that he'd see the longing she couldn't hide.

"Not long. Couple hours maybe."

"The prison's gone?" She couldn't help herself, apparently.

Daryl reached out a hesitant hand and placed it on the baby's head, his touch so sweet and gentle she wanted to cry.

"Yeah." Husky, sad, her heart twisted painfully for him and for the others. "Governor killed Hershel."

She gasped, not expecting news of such a meaningless loss and the sudden hit of it chilled the blood in her veins. "Oh no. Poor Maggie and Beth." The rigid stillness of his body gave her more heart-breaking news than she could deal with and this time she did release a sob, dropping her face against her son as her body shook and the defeat took her over. There were tears in Daryl's voice as he told her about Beth, about losing her when they were out on their own. How she'd gone dark and vengeful, burning down churches and turning her back when she should have been more careful. He said it was quick, but Carol cried anyway, cried like she hadn't done in so long. Daryl dragged her into his chest and she soaked his neck, curled an arm around his ribs and fisted a handful of his shirt at the back and wondered if, now she'd broken this boundary, could she ever let him go. He held her tight, kissed her temple, made sure the baby wasn't crushed between them, and while her old world melded with grief to her new one, the sun fell out of the sky and darkness crept in around them. He held her, even when Lilly came in bringing a lantern, leaving it on the bedside while she fiddled with the IV bag, removing it and the cannula completely without disturbing the emotional bond Daryl had with her. Carol was too tired to resist, too sad to question how easy it had been for him to get this close and sustain it. Too needy to let him go. They stayed wrapped up in each other until the baby once again stirred and it was time to introduce him once again to her breasts. Daryl stayed and watched again, only this time not only was he fixed and fascinated with the sight, that little grin out of the corner of his mouth surface as well. She might have wanted to shut him out, but as the babe sucked and pinched her nipple to the back of his throat, coaxing out the sweet liquid that would give him life and strength, Carol thought she might be pretty well sunk.

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**AN2:**

**Guest 1: **I like to think that, given time and the lack of death, that Daryl and Sophia might have grown close and he'd protect her just as ferociously. Daryl isn't going to risk losing these two, never again. To tell you the truth, I think the friendship that was between Glenn and Daryl, and then Michonne and Daryl, was a lot more equal that anything he had with Rick. I've never written much about Glenn so I'm really glad that his stance has made people happy. As for Tyreese, I just couldn't write him mad and vengeful. It didn't seem right. I think he would let a lot go once he knew about the baby, but I think once they got back and he saw how many died, that he'd have realised pretty quickly that Karen really never stood a chance, and then when he found out it was Carol, he'd have believed she did it to try and help, rather than in cold blood. As for your begging…I will have to ignore it for now ;)

**Guest: **I don't know if you were from the list of Guests from the last chapter but…great list of names! I am definitely after something Southern and I think I'm down to choosing between two. Just as an aside, I have 6 kids and sadly could only feed one of them—the first. It broke my heart, but what can you do? Glad to have you on board and reading. Hope you liked this chapter!

**Dia: **I would LOVE to know your theory if you want to PM me? I am just so chuffed that people have them! This fic seems to have really caught everyone's imagination and it's just the most exciting thing to write toward that. I am having a blast!

**NG: **Thanks!

**GG: **Rick has had a lot of time to feel the impact of his decision and I think it wouldn't be hard for him to have regret over it, especially now there is a real division between him and Daryl. Sasha loves her brother and she just can't understand how he can forgive so easily. I'm sure she'll get there. Poor Maggie has been through an emotional ringer and the last coherent thing that happened for her at the prison before everything went to hell was that Carol was a murderer. Being that her father was murdered right in front of her eyes, I imagine that situation gained a whole new level of horror for her.

For Michonne, I can't ever get it out of my head how she tells Andrea that the two walkers she dragged around with her weren't ever men to begin with. In the comics she is brutally raped and abused by the Governor. In my mind, I think the show implies that it was those two walkers that did that to her. I don't know if they killed her child/children or just abused her after the fact once the apocalypse hit, but that's what I believe about why she dragged those two around with her.

I wish I could throw you a bone, LOL, but if it helps, I've narrowed it down to two names. I thought I'd decided but then I realised one of them features in someone else's fic and I feel funny about it now, so will have to wait and see!

**Guest 3: **I am absolutely LOVING everyone's thoughts on who the dad might be. As you'll see, to Daryl it isn't important, but to others the impact of who it might be really is! It being Rick would be rather huge emotionally on quite a few of them ;)

**Don't forget to review!**


	5. Chapter 5

AN: From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for your amazing response to this story. You've all completely astonished me. I hope you all enjoy this chapter—it took a little while to come to me, to work out how I wanted it to go, so I hope it makes Maggie a little more understandable. Please continue to let me know your thoughts—I am way behind on responses but I am thinking about everything you all have to say!

Many thanks to Atoizzard for coaching me though this chapter. I might never have finished without you!

Part Five

"What _was_ that, Maggie?"

Maggie flopped on their bed, her face pale and her chest heaving as she fought not to burst into tears. She twisted her hands together almost violently, struggling with a depth of emotion that Glenn just didn't understand. He just didn't get the depth of her animosity toward Carol, why Maggie would rather see the woman out there alone, possibly dead over a couple of people that were going to die anyway.

"Why is she back here?" Her voice was strangled and it hurt just to hear it released into the room.

"We found her, Daryl, Michonne and Me, and we brought her back because it was the right thing to do. You know it was. It's what your dad would have wanted. Hell, Daryl deserves to have the woman he loves after all the shit he puts up with from all of us."

Something vulnerable broke through the blazing fire in her eyes and she choked on a sob. "How can he love someone like her? It's her fault daddy and Beth are dead in the first place."

Glenn stood stunned to the spot, his reasoning logic badly battered. "How can you blame Carol for their deaths when she wasn't even there?"

"That's the whole point, Glenn. SHE WASN'T EVEN THERE," Maggie screamed, launching herself off the bed at him, her fists slamming into his chest so hard he stumbled backwards and hit the dresser, flinching as the corner of it shocked his tailbone. Before he could even think he'd snatched up her wrists and shoved her backwards. When he pushed himself off the piece of furniture, he couldn't help but flinch as his vision blurred and agonising spears of pain jolted up his spine.

"If you're gonna blame her for not being there, go shove Rick into something pointy," he spat angrily, rubbing his back and trying to calm himself through the sudden sweat that was bomb blasting his skin.

She shrunk back, her hands covering her mouth as her eyes shot wide open with remorse. "Oh, Glenn, I'm so sorry."

Some days he found it so hard to keep defending Maggie. He knew the burden of her losses crested a never before suspected wall of fury and he'd endured her outbursts more than once, but the kind of love he felt was a hard thing to shelve when he knew she'd be back to the same Maggie he'd fallen for if only he could work out how to alleviate the steadfast ache in her heart.

"This isn't about me. This has never been about me. How can you blame Carol for your dad's death? Carol loved Hershel. She saved his life when he got bit and now you're saying she caused his death? I…" He cut himself off abruptly, not sure he could say what he'd been feeling for a long while now, risking it all to snap her back to seeing things like she'd done before they'd lost so much at the prison.

She was sobbing now, her eyes a flood of tears and her chest hitching against each attempt to control it and just breathe instead.

"I'm just not sure I even know you anymore." He'd tried everything he could think of up to now, but as his body dealt with the blow of her frustration, he wondered if a bit of distance might do them both some good.

"What?" Her surprise was like a blow to his chest. Her eyes had blown wide open and she looked terrified, like he was discarding her forever in a world where for so long the only thing that had made sense had been the reality of them, together.

"I think we need some time apart." He stared at the floor, trying to crush down his own urge to cry.

"Glenn? Why are you saying this? I didn't meant to push you, it was just all too much—l—"

"I know." God, it hurt to look at her, her pretty face all twisted up as she tried to hold back so much emotional trauma they'd been running too long and too fast for her to slow down and deal with. His determination deflated almost instantly and, hands shaking, he slowly made his way back to the bed and sat down next to her, taking one of her hands into his and lacing their fingers together.

"You know, Karen and David weren't going to make it," he said, almost at a whisper. As soon as he'd heard about the deaths, about the burnings, and then heard about Carol's confession, he'd instinctively known what she'd been trying to do, and rather than split his loyalty from her, he'd understood it. Understood and appreciated how much she loved them all to try everything within her power to protect them.

"We don't know that—"

"Stop," he ordered, forcing her to witness his sincerity and the force of his belief as he held her gaze in what felt like a battle of wills he needed to win or suffer the consequence of losing her completely. "We do know that. Everyone in D succumbed, and they died. She was trying to protect us. I don't understand why you can't see that."

Maggie's head bobbed down and she clutched the bedding at her hip with her free hand. He didn't know if she was trying to stem an onrush of grief or if she was so furious she was giving that hand something to do before she lashed out again and snapped the tenuous link he'd offered her before he chose to just walk away.

"I know it's stupid," she said, the words sounding wet and washed out around violent, hiccupping sobs that erupted from seemingly nowhere. "I know it doesn't make any sense, but I keep thinkin', if she'd _been_ there, Daddy wouldn't have been outside with Michonne. He wouldn't have had to deal with everything in that cell block alone. Carol would've been helpin' him an' then he wouldn't've taken the risk of going outside the fences an' getting' caught by that evil sonofabitch."

Glenn nodded, finally seeing the logic behind Maggie's stance, even if he didn't agree with it.

"I know you think that, but Carol wouldn't have gone into quarantine with all of us. Hershel wouldn't have let her, even if she'd thought it was the best thing to do."

Maggie jerked her head up and glared at him.

"Come on, you _know _this," he appealed to her, hoping his calm voice could soothe her back from this dark place she'd disappeared to. "How smart would it have been if the only three people left that weren't sick took that risk? You saw what happened with the Governor. You couldn't have kept on protecting the fences, going on runs for food, cooking for everyone, keeping an eye on the kids, fetching the water all on your own. That's what Carol was doing, trying to keep everything running, keep everyone alive in the best way she could. Hershel was inside doing what he could, but he needed her as much on the outside as we all did. You can't put this on her."

"Why are you defending her?" she asked, her voice shrill as she tried to pull her hand from his. "If Rick had told you instead of me, you'd have thought he did the right thing to kick her out just like I did."

"No," he denied hotly, truthfully. As much as he hated how out-of-synch this issue made them, he'd never agree to discard one of their group without everyone discussing it first. Without having given Carol the chance to defend why she'd chosen to do what she had done. Without giving Daryl the choice of going with her. "I wouldn't have."

Maggie shrugged away from him, dropping his hand and Glenn let it fall into the rift between them, heartsore but knowing there was little he could do to fix it if she was too stubborn to listen and actually hear what he was saying. If he rolled over and played dead now then Carol could be cast out to the wolves and he'd never be able to live with himself, no matter how much he loved his wife.

That thought gave him an idea.

"When do you think Daryl knew he was in love with Carol?" He watched her carefully and the moment her expression softened and her cries rattled to a stop, he knew he'd finally caught her and conveyed what he thought was important for her to acknowledge.

"I don't know if he'd realised it before, but when we were out looking for formula for Judith, it was pretty obvious that losing her shattered him." She swiped at her ravaged face, a tiny yet gentle smile turning up the corners of her lips.

"And then he found her. Remember how happy we were when we found out she was alive?" Glenn reminded her.

Maggie nodded, losing herself in the memories of that time—all the devastation of losing Lori and T-Dog and the joy of finding Carol alive and the arrival of Judith. Of seeing how happy Daryl was when he was around her, how he tried to meld together the group around the addition of his brother but how he always sought her out to see if she approved first.

"I thought about it," Glenn revealed, keeping his voice low so Maggie had to bend close to listen to him properly. "When Karen and David showed symptoms and Sasha and I walked them to Death Row, I thought about it." He stared at her, his intention and conviction so intent it gave them both goosebumps. "If it would have saved you and the others from getting sick and dying, I'd have killed them and burnt their bodies and I wouldn't have regretted any of it. If I had, would you have agreed with Rick that kicking me out was the right thing to do?"

Her eyes watered up again and he felt bad for pushing her so hard, but the idea was so solidly in his head now that he had to do it or walk out that door and wonder if he could ever walk back in.

She shook her head frantically, and then she collapsed into his arms, clinging to him as if his leaving was ever really a threat and he held her as tightly as he could.

"Rick was wrong to do what he did, and he's paid for it," Glenn said into her hair, shaking with the power of his emotion. "Daryl's never going to trust Rick again. He's already protective of that baby so you have to stop thinking that Carol will be going anywhere. I'm glad she won't be. I want her to stay. We all need her here."

Maggie was quiet for a while, soaking up his words, his revelations and then her body relaxed against his and his heart started to ache a little less.

"Do you think the baby is Daryl's?" She pulled away to ask him, the romantic in her hopeful.

He shrugged, feeling a little hopeless and a lot afraid for what the true answer might be. "I get the impression that Daryl doesn't think so. I don't think they were…like that, you know?"

Maggie stilled, her brow furrowed as she fell deep into thought. "Do you think it could have been anyone else at the prison?"

"I don't know who. Carol and Daryl were pretty tight, especially toward the end. Maybe…Rick?"

They both considered it, then shuddered together, laughing softly at the thought.

"No way. Rick had his eye on Michonne," Maggie revealed, and as they lost themselves in a little light gossip, remembering some of the fun and happy times when they'd had the security of the prison, Glenn surrendered to the relief that he had his wife back, confident that if he hadn't completely eradicated her animosity toward Carol, he'd at least altered her perspective.

They'd curled into each other on the bed, holding hands and watching each other softly, telling stories of Hershel and Beth until the tears flowed for both of them, and in the background they heard the quiet sounds of a newborn baby in the house and the low murmurings of a man adept at soothing newborns unlike anyone else they knew.

"Thank you." Maggie curled her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, teasing his lips before kissing him thoroughly, and he was lost once again in the cool, calming seas of her wide, green eyes, remembering all the ways in which he loved her and would protect her until the world ended for both of them.

"For what?"

"For bein' you. For bein' the perfect guy that you always are."

Glenn grinned, ducked his head and chuckled into her shoulder, the pain in his back a disappearing, distant blip on his memory as he relished having his Maggie back at last.

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AN: I'm skipping responses right now, mainly because I am seriously behind on replying to reviews, and because I wanted to get this one out to you ASAP. I will catch you up on the next chapter, I promise!


	6. Chapter 6

AN: So, finally Christmas is over! I feel so relieved. I hope you all had a really wonderful day, spent as much with family and loved ones as was able. I had a quiet day and I am sincerely grateful.

I am still floored the response this little fic has received. I am so glad that the Glenn/Maggie chapter struck a chord. It was a difficult chapter to write but one that was very much needed. Hopefully you'll all enjoy this chapter, too. I would love to hear your thoughts! ~~ Megan

Part Six

It made him sick to acknowledge the truth of himself, but Rick knew that all these months past, since the day Carol had handed him her last link to the Carol Peletier of old in the form of a well-worn, half diminished watch, he'd hoped that she'd found her death. He'd been selfish in hoping that she was gone, not because he hadn't realised his mistake and not because he wasn't able to find the shreds of the love he'd felt for her since he'd really gotten to know her, but because she was the face of truth that he could never deny. Her surfacing now would mean an avalanche of emotion and destruction to all they'd been able to piece together since the prison's walls had finally folded beneath the traction of a tank, and he just wasn't ready to surrender it all yet.

Sometimes, when he found it harder to keep the good thoughts clear in his head, he wandered into memories of Shane, and he wondered what might have happened if Shane had still been the leader of the group. Whether he'd have fostered whatever it was that had been unearthed in Carl, proud of the boy for stepping up and making the hard decisions that Rick had never been able to make with a determined heart, or if he'd have had the skills that Rick himself obviously lacked to make his son better—to help Carl find the road back. If he'd have healed Rick's boy and given him the meaning and the direction needed to make good in this world without falling a victim to it. He wondered if Shane might have been different if Rick hadn't shown up like a vengeful ghost and taken leadership from him when it seemed to be the only thing Shane had had left. He wondered if taking the last things from a man and leaving him with nothing meant he had no motivation to ever fight his way back, and then he'd wondered if Shane had really existed for him at all—how he'd ever been able to justify to himself, let alone anyone else, that killing Shane was the only option left open to him instead of walking out of that fight and letting the emotions of it all get so out of control. Let it be his reason, his justification for keeping to the shadows until it was time to stand in the light and bark orders.

Like he'd done with Carol.

She'd seen him for who he'd truly been on that fateful day, and she'd called him on it. Only later, when he'd had time to think about what he'd done—once he'd been able to put his own fear aside and see the devastation that had struck Daryl hard at her loss—only then had he been ready to face his mistake and see the courage that had been her backbone all along.

"Dad?"

He hated the way Carl looked at him sometimes—like his mind was still so fragile that he couldn't handle anything but being spoken to softly unless a loud noise might rip his uncertain mental state asunder. He knew they all remained suspicious of him, that when they'd first found each other again he was in a dark place, a place even darker than before. It had appeared that his wavering ability to _be there _for anyone was a major source of frustration—especially for Daryl—but the weight was sometimes far too heavy for him to carry. At times like these, where he found himself standing right now, the weight was crushing him like a toad. He was folding like a house of cards and there was nothing he could do about it, because Carol wasn't still lost out there, she hadn't died, she was lying in a bedroom upstairs, as far away from the rest of them as Daryl could get her, and in her arms was a child, and in _Rick's _arms were regrets and recriminations too numerous to carry all together.

"Dad!"

Rick blinked at Carl, wishing with everything he had that he didn't have to have this conversation, because he already knew how it would go. Everything they'd hidden for so many months, for almost a year, was about to get blown out of the water and Rick didn't feel like he was brave enough to stand up to the explosion.

"You don't have to say anything," he prefaced, rubbing a shaking hand across his mouth, feeling his mouth dry as words seemed to soak up all available moisture. "She's been out there all this time, keeping your secret. I don't think she'll tell." His desperation to believe it scored his throat, making it so raw he worried he was bleeding internally. When he tasted actual blood he flinched before realising he was gnawing brutally at his bottom lip.

"I want to tell," Carl implored, standing right in front of him and forcing him to face the reality of the situation. "We should have told them right from the beginning. Should have at least told Daryl."

"No." Rick shook his head, his mind firmly in denial as he thought back to that day, to the momentum of the fight between he and Tyreese and cold, hurtling fear drove him to his unsteady feet. "Tyreese will kill you."

"Dad!" Carl took a step back, irritation creeping along every gangly limb as his hand rested on the gun at his hip and something indecipherable stole across his face. "Ty isn't going to kill me. Why don't you see that? I have to go talk to Carol. I _have _to."

"Carl!" Rick launched himself forward, panic clouding his mind as the flimsy card house came fluttering down all around him, confusing him. Before he reached him, however, Carl stepped away, his hand gripping the doorknob, ready to leave and let the truth be known, be damned the consequences.

"I need to do this, Dad. If not for me, then for Judith and for Daryl and Carol. People need to know the truth, and I need to face what I did. You can't keep hiding from it and hoping it doesn't continue to eat you alive."

The door opened quietly, and Rick vaguely registered the complete lack of anger that had dwelled in his son all the long months after their escape. Instead, Rick thought he glimpsed something that resembled peace, and it followed Carl down the hallway to the stairs, and up those as he climbed his way to Carol's room. Rick watched, laboured hope blooming in his chest as he watched not a child walk away from him with a petulance that had buried him in amongst some of the worst decisions of his life, but a man taking control of his life and his destiny, no matter what the consequence. Rick wasn't able to be anything but proud, even as he stepped back into the shadows of his room, and waited for the fallout.

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Daryl had passed on his watch duty to Glenn, rather than leaving Carol alone. He hated to acknowledge it, but there were members of the group he didn't fully trust anymore. Maggie had already shown her hand, though a quiet chat with Glenn had given him hope that she might finally be able to put her animosity behind her—at least enough to leave Carol alone. But…there were others, and that uncertainty was enough to convince him that after all the time he'd known her—and all the time where he'd lost her—his place was at her side, whether she was in favour of it or not.

She was sleeping, wiped out finally from the birth and the few feeds she'd already given her little guy, and so now she was out like a light. In sleep she was fully exposed and his heart hurt to see how pale she was, and how thin. The bags under her eyes were dark and hollow, her lips not as pink as they used to be and the jut of her collarbone stuck out much farther than he remembered. She'd done well out on her own—she'd survived in spite of Rick's finalising sentence—but Daryl knew she could do better. He needed to get her strong again, ready to move, and he needed to work out how he'd do it so that they kept the baby safe.

He could hear the muted sounds of dinner being prepared, the children fussing around quietly, fulfilling their duties with minimal conflict, and as much as he hated to hear the spats that always followed a large group of children, he died a little inside that they were all so quiet now, forgetting how to be kids, siblings, friends. Kids fought, it was a fact of life, but these ones—they were survivors first and foremost and while that's what they had to be to keep going in this world, Daryl couldn't help but wish for something better. Something normal. As his eyes settled on the baby, watching his arms jerk and wrestle their way out of the blanket, he decided that it was beyond time they found the place.

He was drawn irrevocably to the kid, swooping in and picking him up before his wakefulness stirred Carol.

"Your mama needs some more sleep, little man." Bright blue eyes blinked up at him and Daryl was captivated, seeing Carol's lustre and life within them and remembering Sophia's, so large and innocent within her face, and a knot of tears teased at his throat. He couldn't deal with how he was feeling, the tidal wave of emotion he'd kept at arm's length now threatening to swamp him so thoroughly he wondered if he'd be able to emerge from it still whole.

There were certain things he tried to blank out completely, terrified that the truth might be too much for him to take, but the reality of the babe in his arms mucked it all up to hell. No one had kept track of time, not officially, but he was a hunter and he'd watched the trail of the moon, sensed the seasons and he knew, _knew _that this child's daddy was someone from the prison. It cut him up inside, and as the spark of knowledge skipped right over his better reasoning, the pain bit straight into his heart. For him, it had always been her. He'd gone to her when he needed to be around someone, gone to her when he had something to share, her he'd thought of as his eyes dropped closed for the night. Being around her had made him happy, had kept him tethered and able to continue past the moments that might have broken him—like losing his brother. She'd kept his head where it needed to be, and she gave him strength and purpose and confidence to be the kind of man she seemed to know above all others that he could be. He loved her and while he wished it didn't, it gutted him completely that she'd been kicked out of the prison, her body harbouring a tiny stowaway, and even though he didn't know who the fuck was responsible for placing the child within her in the first place, he knew who had condemned them both to death, and it made him livid.

He didn't want to focus on the mystery of who the father was, didn't want to give his jealousy room to breathe, not when he was in the same room as her. It was enough to know it hurt. Enough to know he'd left it too late then, but hoped it wouldn't be too late now.

There was a quiet knock at the door, bringing Daryl back from his dark meanderings down memory lane and he curled his arm around the baby protectively. Carl slowly entered, looking nervous but respectful as he took a good look at the baby in Daryl's arms, a gentle smile spreading across his lips. Daryl tipped his head at the boy, the corner of his mouth tipping up with pleasure he couldn't quite explain, but then he fell serious and his eyes narrowed at Carl.

"I know why you're here," he informed Carl quietly, taking no satisfaction at Carl's jump of apprehension. He glanced at Carol, content that she still slept and he ushered Carl closer to the door, the tone of his voice hushed in order to keep Carol in the land of nod as well as trying to control the number outside that could overhear him. "This ain't the time, Carl. Go back and talk to Rick. Help him see why it's gotta be done, an' when I say it's time, we'll let all the group know at once."

Carl was startled into immobility, his eyes wide and vulnerable. "Are you sure? I mean, I need to tell her I'm sorry," and as he meant to take another step, Daryl moved to block him, cutting out his view of Carol as she slept on.

"Man, she knows. She ain't gonna be blamin' you, so get that worry off your shoulders right now. Jus'…go spend some time with Ass-kicker. Help out downstairs. I'll let you know when it's time."

"I never did understand," Carl choked out and Daryl flinched at the waterworks the kid was trying to hold back. "How did you know? Did my dad tell you?"

Daryl's jaw tightened. He wished Rick had told him, that his one-time friend could have come to him and apologised for what he'd done, for betraying one of their own and leaving her to die, and for confiding in him once he'd worked out that his own son was the one that did it. Killed Karen and David. Daryl wished for a lot of things that hadn't happened over the last seven or eight months, but not much had been delivered.

"I know Carol, and she ain't no killer. Weren't hard to figure out she was coverin'. Only one that made sense was you," Daryl admitted, starting to shuffle as the baby in his arms began his muffled routine toward announcing renewed hunger.

Carl studied him and Daryl let him, refusing to back down as the kid stared straight at his face, searching for some kind of recrimination. Daryl knew he wasn't going to find it.

"Why aren't you mad? You should hate me." Carl hated himself enough for everyone; Daryl had seen it the minute the group had reconnected with him, Rick and Michonne. It wasn't his place to put an added burden to his grief. It had been enough that they'd spent their time apart thinking Judith was gone. Besides, Daryl wasn't Rick. He wasn't going to hand the kid a backpack of provisions and tell him to hit the road, to find a new group of people and lie about who he was. What Carl had done had been reckless, a risk and it had paid the ultimate price with Carol being kicked off the ranch, but there was nothing to be done about it now. They had their miracle, she was back and Daryl was happy enough to let things fall where they would and move on.

"Ain't no point bein' mad," Daryl said, chewing on the inside of his cheek before shrugging and indicating Carl should head back down the stairs. The boy turned and Daryl watched his shoulders lift a little as he strode toward the stairs, nodding once when Carl looked back over his shoulder, and then he jogged down the stairs. Wasn't long before he heard the happy chattering of Judith as Carl came into sight, and Daryl couldn't repress the satisfied smile that settled across his lips.

As he turned back to the bed, gently rocking the babe in his arms, he clashed with hot, depthless eyes and his body was wracked with shivers.

"Do you really believe that, Daryl?" She pushed herself up, tears welling in her eyes as she stared him down and he felt the first splinterings of his heart. "Do you really know me?"

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**Guest: **Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you too! I hope it was a wonderful one.

**Dia: **My gut feeling is that Glenn wouldn't have supported Rick's decision either. He was the first one to really acknowledge that Rick kept visiting 'crazy town' and to me, this would have been another example to him of why the council was essential. Can't reply on the baby day front. I'm sure you understand!

**NG: **Thank YOU for continuing to be a faithful reader!

**GG: **I was hoping people could sympathise a little with Maggie's pain and loss in this fic. After all, Rick has coped far worse and everyone has allowed that. Women can be bitchier though ;)

I considered the feeding thing and I figured she might not have been looking after herself the best of her ability, but that child needed her, so…we will suspend disbelief for the moment ;) It was hit and miss with my babies, one of them was awful, but then I had milk issues anyway which might have been a factor. I think Carol's boobs need to be put to good use as they've been mostly under-utilised in the past :P


	7. Chapter 7

AN: I have a feeling this might be the chapter ya'll have been waiting for. I am very, very keen to hear your responses. :D

Part Seven

The whirl of emotion she felt at his declaration clawed so savagely at her insides she feared she'd fall apart. She couldn't tear her eyes off him, off her son cradled in his arms, and a surge of pure white anger ripped through her.

"You think you _know_ me?" she spat, incredulous, long months of hurt and resentment and guilt swirling around in her heart so hard and fast she thought she might be ready to explode. "Just how exactly do you think you know me, Daryl? Please enlighten me?"

She could see he'd stopped his rocking, the baby protesting the sudden end of the soothing motion as Daryl was caught and reacted in his shock by ceasing movement completely. He was so still that she considered that he might have even stopped breathing. His pupils had dilated as his eyes narrowed, and then he ducked his head, breaking the spell and whipping up her anger into flames.

"I knew you couldn't kill those people," he said, and she heard the gravelly certainty in his voice and it went part way to soothing her nerves. "Soon as Rick said you weren't sorry, that you did it to protect us, I knew it weren't you." He looked up then, uncertainty clear in his stormy grey eyes as his gaze clashed with hers, both of them suddenly finding a fire within them to prove something. "Governor hit as soon as I went to talk to Tyreese, so I didn't get to think it all out 'till after we got out. You mighta done it for us, to protect us all, but there ain't no way you wouldn'ta been sorry for it. Rick wasn't seein' things clearly." He waited and she nodded, knowing intimately how unclear Rick had been in his mind for quite some time, especially as she'd paid the ultimate price for it. "Wasn't hard to work out you were coverin' for someone by confessin' so fast. Tyreese and I worked it out. Rick never said nothin' so we let it rest."

"So you're all _still_ protecting Rick," Carol stated, nodding her head like she wasn't surprised, even though the truth of it killed any hope she'd had that maybe she could return and live amongst them again.

"No," Daryl denied hotly, though he never once raised his voice, all the time conscious of the little body he held protectively in his arms. "We've been protectin' Carl. Tryin' to give him the right kinda responsibilities and guidance to bring him back. Rick tried with all that farmin' shit and takin' the kid's weapon off him, leavin' him and Judith defenceless if they ever got into trouble. It didn't work, so we've been tryin' other tactics, and the kid is changin'. Developin' more of a conscience. He wants to confess. You heard it."

Carol nodded, even though she had no intention of that taking place. She'd protected him for a reason, and that Tyreese and Daryl—the two men both wronged the most by what had happened, one by Carl, the other by her—had taken on the responsibility of drawing Carl back into the world and find the kind of person he'd been destined to be, filled her with immeasurable relief.

"Okay," she said at last, releasing an unsteady breath that still hurt in her chest. "Thank you—for believing in me."

"Believin' in you?" There was a flash of disbelief in Daryl's eyes that made her breath quicken, and then his lips became a thin line as he glared at her. "You have any idea how it felt comin' back home and findin' out he'd thrown you out? That for all his bullshit words he expected you to die out there?" He started pacing, remembered fury and fear forcing him to move and expend some energy. "Don't you _know _how that ripped me apart? An' I couldn't do fuck all about it 'cause the asshole gave you a car, an' as good as I am, I ain't able to track a fuckin' car on the road. Why the hell didn' you come back?"

"I thought he'd kill me if I came back." Her confession was merely a whisper but it echoed as loud as a gunshot in the room and it swivelled his attention back to her, his face no longer hiding any of his misery or the pain he'd suffered since he'd thought he'd lost her for good. He nodded once, sharply before sitting on the bed at her feet, reluctantly handing the baby back to her. As soon as his arms were empty, he looked uncomfortable, but it wasn't until he raised his hand and ran it through his hair that she saw how he shook.

"He said you was actin' cold, remorseless."

"He had his hand on his gun, Daryl," she cried out in defence of herself, tipping over the edge with her frustration. "I thought he took me out there to kill me like he did Shane. I was protecting myself against a man I thought was going to snap at any moment." She paused, thought on it a moment then conceded he'd understand better than anyone else could have. "I did that the best way I knew how, after suffering years of beatings. It probably _did _look like I was cold and remorseless, but I'm not going to apologise for that."

"That ain't you," he agreed with such depth of sincerity that she wondered how she'd ever survived apart from him. "It's how I knew." The softness of his voice grooved under her skin and Carol shuddered. She wanted to reach over and touch him, wanted to feel his skin on hers so much she almost burst into tears at the sheer agony of wanting it, but she'd had months to build up her hurt—far too long to dismiss it simply because he claimed to know her better than anyone else ever had.

"Thank you." _For believing in me, _she wanted to say, but falling back into the same pattern of their previous friendship was proving impossible for her, too many walls having been erected since they'd parted.

"Shit," exploded past his lips and he erupted back to his feet, his heavy boots wearing out the carpet as he resumed his pacing. "Fuck. Thank you. That's all I get?"

She frowned, unsure what had suddenly happened. "What do you want, Daryl?"

The sudden stillness made her nervous, but then his eyes turned flinty as he stared at her, watching her more closely than she felt anyone had ever done before, and she clutched the baby closer to her chest.

"You were pregnant when he kicked you out. I thought we were friends. You coulda told me."

_Friends._ She swallowed hard.

"If I'd known," she said, hating the emotional cracks that showed through, hating the tears that seemed to always be there stinging at her eyes, "of course I'd have told you."

He rubbed the balls of his fists across his eyes and Carol actually wondered if he was trying not to cry. Her heartbeat stuttered and she suddenly felt icy cold with dread, physically anticipating a trauma too great for her emotional state to deal with without overreacting. As soon as he opened his mouth, she knew she was lost.

"Whose is he?"

Her mouth dropped open in shock, but he just kept spinning out of control.

"Are you serious right now?"

Daryl spun on his heel, his eyes burning with some kind of inner rage Carol hadn't seen since all the way back on the farm and just like then, fear took a back seat, but instead of understanding, this time she felt disgust.

"I thought…" His throat clamped down on what he thought and Carol was left flailing in the dark, her own words bubbling up so ferociously she thought she'd choke getting anything out.

"You thought what, Daryl?" She was unable to keep the bite out of her words and he answered with a snarl.

"Never mind what the hell I thought," he dismissed with a decisive wave of his hand. "Who was it? Was it Rick?"

Her eyes almost bugged right out of her head and her hurt kept billowing out of control, the more he opened his mouth. "What? Don't be stupid—"

"Was it Ryan? You two got on like a house on fire. Maybe that's why he gave you them two girls you ain't even bothered askin' about. Both of 'em survived, in case you were wonderin'. Down stairs an' keep askin' when they can see you."

She felt like he'd just ripped her heart right out of her chest, leaving a bloodied, gaping hollow where he'd always resided. She gasped in pain, paying no mind to the silent tears that made tracks down her face.

"You need to leave, Daryl," she stated, her voice several degrees colder than she'd ever used on him before. "You need to leave right now."

They were at a silent stalemate when Michonne walked in, immediately feeling the tension and clearing her throat to disrupt it. "Looks like you two could take a break from each other. Daryl, go get something to eat. I'll stay here with Carol."

Daryl glared at them both, then stomped out of the room, snagging his crossbow from beside the door as he left. Carol watched his angel wings disappear, sniffled angrily and then tried to cut the emotion off. Michonne, clearly uncomfortable, put a plate of food down on the bed and then gently wrestled the little bundle out of Carol's arms. The baby was awake, lying snug as a bug in a lovingly pilfered rug, his little eyelids wide open and his innocent little face switching from twitching awareness to sleepy disdain. Michonne chuckled, reaching out her hand and stroking the back of his tiny hand with her finger.

When Carol finished eating, Michonne was trying to blink away her tears, though just as something new, she didn't try to hide them, just forced them back into her past where she seemed to think they would always belong.

"He's gorgeous."

Carol nodded at her, a warm lethargy of maternal love and acceptance spreading along her limbs to replace the stress and tension of before. It was a welcome relief to rest somewhere and know that she didn't have to run through every minute, fearful for her safety. Knowing that maybe she hadn't sought it out, and had no intention of accepting it for good, but being grateful that for these few days after the birth, someone had her back.

"Thank you."

Michonne reached over and clasped her hand, a breach of her usual nonchalance that shocked Carol so much that she looked out into the hall just to make sure there wasn't another Michonne waiting out there to replace this obvious doppleganger.

"Does he have a name yet?"

Carol looked thoughtfully at her hand in Michonne's and decided to let it lie, shrugging her shoulders in apparent apathy, not sure why this woman was reaching out to her but struggling against the warmth and love she felt seeping from Michonne's hand to hers.

"I was thinking of Duke, because it means leader—"

"And you want him to be a good one, like his daddy."

"Because I want him to be better than Rick," Carol corrected and Michonne nodded, the pressure on Carol's hand increasing enough to inform her that the woman got it.

A relaxed quiet drifted over them and Carol felt the usual storm of thoughts that did battle inside her head finally start to hush. Felt the hurt from Daryl's attack hide away for another time when she felt she could deal with it. She felt like the high alert she'd been on the second Rick had given her her walking orders was suddenly taken out of her hands, stolen from her by Michonne's strong grip as she hung onto Carol's hand without speaking.

"I've changed my mind, though," she confided quietly, her voice lowering several octaves for fear someone might walk by and attempt to infiltrate her emotions and desecrate them as unnatural.

"Names are important," Michonne agreed, lacing her fingers through Carol's now, warming her with friendship. "What have you chosen?"

All at once the confidence she wanted to share with Michonne stalled in her throat. Her other hand came up to sweep at more escaping tears, came to cover her face as an onslaught of emotion blindsided her. Without her permission, all the anger fled, leaving her feeling weak and light-headed. "I'm going to call him Beau," she whispered, her throat feeling dry and hoarse. "Because he's the only beautiful thing I have left in my life. Because he reminds me that whenever I think I've lost everything, there is still something there, something precious for me to hold onto."

Michonne slanted her eyes at the baby, tipped her head to the side and contemplated his looks.

"This boy is going to have a challenging life," she predicted, seemingly deadly serious until her face cracked open and blitzed an unsuspecting Carol with a stunning smile. "He looks entirely too much like his uncle Merle."

Carol blinked in surprise, momentarily thrown by Michonne's insight, then she laughed. "Merle wasn't so bad," she tried, though she couldn't hold back a spate of giggles she had no power to explain even feeling.

"Well, maybe not in the looks department," Michonne agreed.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: I woke up this morning to an avalanche of email notifications. I was completely overwhelmed by the response to the last chapter. I hope this chapter finally gets it all out into the open and you all find some sense of satisfaction in it. I am incredibly eager to hear your thoughts on it!

Part Eight

He hadn't been able to walk away, not completely. He'd taken what food Lilly offered then slunk his way back upstairs, not wanting Carol to know that he was ignoring her wishes but needing to be on guard around her anyway. He'd sat outside the door, waiting for Michonne to finish with her visit, and ate his food, his thoughts in turmoil and his heart heavy with dread. When they started talking about names for the baby and Carol confessed she wanted him to grow up to be a better leader than Rick, he wanted to put his head through the wall to stop the ache in his chest. He'd never known, never even suspected anything more than friendship between the two, and in the later months even that had been strained. He guessed now he understood why and it did nothing to stop the growing desire he'd had to shoot Rick in the ass since he'd been told of Carol's banishment.

The room fell into a calm force of quiet for a while, and Daryl tried to breath steadily, tried to push his sorrow away, but then Carol started talking again and he belatedly realised he didn't want to hear any more details—didn't want to hear about her being intimate with Rick when Daryl himself had thought he'd been giving her time to make the decision for them to be more than friends. Giving her time to be more comfortable with his touch so that he could finally give in to the raging need he had to love her all over. It was too late to move, though, and as much as he wanted to be a child and cover his own ears with his hands, he sat there miserably and waited for the further details to shatter his heart completely.

"I'm going to call him Beau," he heard Carol say, and he nodded his head to himself. It was a good, solid Southern name. He could have seen himself picking something like that out. He liked it better than Duke, anyways.

"Because he's the only beautiful thing I have left in my life. Because he reminds me that whenever I think I've lost everything, there is still something there, something precious for me to hold onto." Every word she uttered cut him deeper and more cruelly. Daryl blinked, trying to curb the surge of pain and failure he felt and wished he could just go and wring Rick's neck. He wished he could kick _his _ass out into the street and tell him to just go and survive. Daryl didn't know how the prick managed to knock up every available woman around the place, but by his estimation, Michonne better keep her legs closed. Last thing they needed was some half-assed commune populated mostly with Grimes progeny.

Knowing he couldn't take anymore, Daryl swayed to his feet and had even taken a step when Michonne said something that froze any forward momentum he might have had going.

"This boy is going to have a challenging life," he heard, holding in a snort at how obvious that was. Who didn't lead a challenging life these days? "He looks entirely too much like his uncle Merle." And then he damn near choked on his own tongue as very molecule in his body froze and burned at the same time.

Everything went hazy for a minute or two and Daryl felt dizzy, placing his palm out against the wall to hold steady while his heart raced so fast he thought it was about to leave his chest and chase down some common sense. Fuck, if that kid was his, why didn't he remember? There was no way he'd forget something like that. No way, no how.

"So what was with all the silent treatment when I walked in earlier?" Michonne, busy body that she was, might very well be Daryl's new best friend, he decided, thinking Carol might need a strong talking to for concocting something like this. Wasn't like he'd have denied the kid if it could possibly have been his, but lying about it…

"Daryl was accusing me of sleeping with Rick." She paused and he could hear the distinct sound of tears in her voice, of betrayal—he knew without seeing her she was devastated and he couldn't understand any of it, her words, his words all a major jumble in his head. "And then when I said how stupid that was, he jumped to Ryan."

Michonne snorted and Daryl clenched his hands into fists, frustration pulsating along every last one of his nerves. "There is no way this little nose is anything but a Dixon's. The man is blind."

He could hear Carol sniffling then and his blood burned in his veins.

"It's not his fault," she argued valiantly, though he was so angry with her he didn't care much anymore. "He doesn't remember, and he shouldn't. I…made sure he wouldn't." How the fuck wouldn't he remember sleeping with the damn woman he'd been in love with for so long? She was talking out of her ass and he was about to storm in there and set them both straight when Michonne seemed to understand everything he didn't and it stalled him with confusion, and keeping his feet stuck where they were was probably the best decision he'd made in a long time.

"Aahhh, you're talking about Glenn and Maggie's wedding? That's the only time I can remember seeing him so drunk he could barely walk straight. I'm surprised he still remembers his own name after that night," Michonne said with a husky chuckle.

"I think we were all a little inebriated that night," Carol admitted carefully, knowing she wasn't exactly a shining example of sobriety that happy night herself.

"Oh I remember," said Michonne slyly, and Daryl held his breath, waiting impatiently for more. "I just about carried you back to your cell."

"And I've apologised over and over again for that," Carol giggled and Daryl couldn't help but shake his head and grin. He did have pretty vague memories of that night. He remembered being able to put away only about a third of what he'd been used to in his earlier life, and he remembered fully lusting after Carol for more than half the night. He remembered Michonne leading her away from the festivities before he'd worked up the courage to ask her to dance, or anything else, and then honestly, the rest of the night he thought had been his overactive imagination granting him his wildest dreams.

"So what happened after I left your cell?" Michonne sounded like she was making herself comfy for the biggest gossip session of her life and Daryl bit his lip to stop himself from growling. If he didn't think Carol would clam up and probably lie right to his face, he'd march on in there and demand she tell him exactly what happened. Then he'd kick her ass for letting him think nothing had happened before kissing her senseless and declaring that when everything was sorted, it'd be happening again, and she'd best let him remember it.

"I woke up when Daryl fell on me." She stopped and he leaned in closer to the door, desperate to hear more, forcing himself to ignore the embarrassment of finding out that Romeo, he wasn't.

"That's it?" Michonne scoffed. "You do know that to make a baby you need more than that, right? I mean, there had to be some nakedness at least."

"Oh, there was nakedness," Carol admitted and her voice became so high and wistful Daryl started preening right there in the corridor. "There was exactly the right amount of nakedness to produce this little bundle right here." For just a minute Daryl picked up on the lust she had obviously felt, but by the time she'd finished speaking, sadness was seeping from her heart and slamming directly into his. How had he had the time to fuck it all up so bad that she'd managed to convince him it had all been a dream?

"So what went wrong? I'm assuming something did go wrong if Daryl never realised he could be a daddy to this little guy?"

Carol released a tortured little whimper that broke Daryl's heart in half. "He called me 'Maggie,' right before he fell asleep. I…it hurt, you know? All that time, I loved him so much, and when I finally got him, it wasn't even me he wanted." Her voice broke and he heard her sniffle, but his mind was racing, his heart thundering so loud he almost missed the rest of it. "What would you have done?"

Michonne was silent for a moment and for once he hoped she'd just shut her mouth, but of course she didn't. No man should have to ever hear the kind of things he suspected Michonne would have done in the situation. He felt like shielding his balls just in case she suddenly sensed he was out in the hall and decided to use him to illustrate her point. He just wanted it to stop, for the most monumental re-telling of his fucked up mistake to completely stop, but instead the nightmare kept unfolding, unfolding his mind right along with it.

"I don't know," Michonne said at last, but he could tell she was sincerely thinking about it. "I do have a sword, though. That might have come into play." The two of them laughed even while Daryl winced, and he was grateful he'd never been stupid enough to have any feelings for Michonne or he might have suffered more than a few cuts by now. "What _did_ you do?"

"I got out of there as fast as I could before he could see how much he'd hurt me. The next day I told him he'd crashed in my cell when I'd gone to bed, so I left him there and slept in his. He never knew it was anything but a dream and I…I just pretended nothing had changed."

"So now he doesn't know he's a father and he thinks you slept with someone else at the prison." The matter-of-fact way Michonne outlined his fuckup made his head spin.

"In a nutshell."

He didn't wait around to hear anymore. He had his own thinking to do.

He found some solitude in the backyard, now completely shrouded in darkness. While he'd stood guard over Carol and the baby, the day had quietly slipped away, and now he was contemplating the meaning of his life while the others were bunking down inside, keeping the noise and lights low while still trying to fashion out some kind of life.

He couldn't quite get his head around what he'd heard. He'd gone to her the night of the wedding, full of boozed-up bravado and mind-splintering lust and they'd finally made love. How the fuck had he brought Maggie into it? How the fuck had she managed to convince him it had just been his overactive imagination yet again instead of the blissfully clumsy, uncoordinated sex it must have been while the pair of them had been on the worst side of their imbibing? And now there was a baby, and he felt cheated that he'd not been able to gush over the little guy like a daddy should instead of letting his own jealousy eat him savagely from the inside. And the Maggie shit still had his head all fucked up and confused.

His thoughts and concerns were turning round in his head so fast he had to sit his ass down hard on the ground and hang his head between his knees to try and get it to stop. A cold sweat broke out on his flesh and he tried to slow the sudden wash of images down before it totally overwhelmed his senses, forcing him into some dumbass move that might get him killed—by Carol if not by Michonne.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he was back there. Back at the prison, back at the wedding, and along with the happy vibe of the day, his breathing slowed and he just watched it like a show, finding comfort in the happier time for the whole group before the Governor showed up with his tank and flattened their fences. Before Rick took leadership into his own hands once again without telling a soul and banishing the one woman Daryl had ever thought of as his.

He'd kept his eyes on her all night, following her path as she'd taken care of the little things that made the ceremony one Maggie would remember forever, controlled the kids so their running excitement was on low until the music at least started. The vows had taken place outside at sunset, and then as night fell, the group had found their way into the cleared and decorated cafeteria, the walls dulling some of the music that had been played so it didn't wind the walkers along the fences up so much they got dangerous.

The men had taken turns on watch, Daryl doing his duty early and then giving in to the lure of a good amount of whisky he and Glenn had found on several runs preparing for the big day. The girls might have been all about the satin and flowers, but the men… The men remembered the highs that came from a good serve of alcohol at a wedding.

His brain had been sex-addled the second he'd seen her in a dress—and not just any dress, but a pretty cornflower blue one where her breasts had been made the feature of some fancy designing and very little was left to his imagination. The urge to touch her, to taste her had tipped his hand toward more of the whisky to calm himself down. By the time Michonne had curled her arm around Carol's waist, both of them giggling together like teenagers as Michonne led the way back upstairs, he'd stood to follow, only to find his damn legs were as useless as Jell-O.

For months he'd believed what happened next had been a particularly vivid dream, and now that he put all the evidence in order, he could kick his own ass for being so stupid. Carol had left before him, not after, so there was no way he'd have fallen asleep in her bunk unless she'd been in it with him. And, he never stripped down completely naked when he'd hit the hay, never wanting to be caught with his ass hanging out if walkers ever made it inside.

He'd climbed the steps to the top floor of their cells, reeling and fired up with lust. Feet stumbling up the steps, he'd had one goal, and one goal only. He was going to tell Carol he was hers to do with what she would, and he'd fall at her feet and beg if he had to, but he wasn't leaving that cell until he'd finally tasted her mouth. All day he'd been thinking about her, starting from the morning watch he'd taken, sitting up in amongst the Rhee/Greene love nest in the watchtower, his imagination driving him crazy. He wanted what those two had—the closeness, the being there for each other and letting the world know it. He was sick of hiding how he felt, of being unsure that if shit hit the fan, people would know that Carol was his responsibility before he worried about anyone else. Didn't mean he wouldn't worry, but if there was a choice, he was saving her ass first. He was jealous of Glenn and Maggie, and he was sick of feeling that disruption to his life. He could think of much more productive ways to spend his energies, and after sucking down enough Dutch courage to sink the Dutch, he'd made his way to her room, to her bed, and if his memory served, he'd enjoyed the best night of awkward, drunken sex in his miserable life. He'd fallen asleep with the intention of claiming a repeat when he was relatively sober.

Only, when he did wake, Carol was gone and she'd acted surprised when he'd fumbled his way around asking her where she'd disappeared to, giving him the bullshit story that he'd slept there alone and she'd commandeered his bunk when she couldn't budge him from hers. He'd grunted in confusion, threw her an embarrassed twitch of his lips that would more likely be called a grimace than a smile, then he'd closed up tight against the prospect of trying to go through it all again. Only, now he knew that bullshit excuse really had been bullshit and the best night of his life had produced a son.

He heard her boots crunch across the grass and didn't even bother to raise his head. "You really are something else."

"Always thought it was better than bein' nothin'," he agreed, though his heart wasn't in it.

"I should kick your ass for what you've done to her. How could you accuse her of sleeping with Rick? After what he did to her?" Michonne stood her ground as he suddenly launched himself to his feet, seething with his own perceived emotional injuries.

"What I done to her? What about what she done to me? All this time I thought..." He paced away, his fingers tearing at his hair as an intense surge of uselessness rose up and blindsided him. "I ain't the kinda asshole who doesn't own up to his own kid. How was I supposed to know when she moved Heaven and Hell to make me think it never even happened?"

Michonne stepped a ways behind him and slapped him across the back of head. "You called her 'Maggie' while you were having sex with her. Was she meant to just say, 'It's okay, Daryl. I know you'd rather be fucking the bride but I'll let you use me for a stand in just for now?'"

He flinched, finding it hard to understand how this misunderstanding had come into play. He stretched his tight back muscles, thinking, prowling back and forth around the yard like a caged wildcat, wanting desperately to either beat the shit out of something or curl up like a baby and cry about how thoroughly he'd fucked up his life.

"I ain't _never_ thought of Maggie like that," he denied hotly, still pacing out his frenetic energy like it might go some way in helping him dim the anger that was crawling into the back of his skull, tinting his vision red. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was at least that.

"Of course you have."

He spun around so fast his boots tore up the yard, his eyes wide and incredulous. "The fuck you say?"

She was in his face in a heartbeat, her face all scrunched up in disgust, jabbing her finger hard in his chest.

"All you men are the same. You picture every damn woman in viewing distance naked and then have the nerve to act all innocent when you get caught out like the slithering snakes you are."

Her tone was drowning in suddenly exposed repulsion and Daryl guessed it was summoned for men in general, but right now he couldn't give a rat's ass what her issues were, because she was pissing him the hell off and talking about shit she didn't have a clue about. He swiped her finger away from his chest and sidestepped her, considering her carefully while he worked out what he wanted to say.

"I ain't never pictured you naked, neither, and you wanna know why? 'Cause I got zero interest in fucking you, an' I respect the poor asshole in this group that would actually consider sacrificing his dick for the chance." He took a tentative step closer, his whole body blistering with repressed emotions. "The _only _woman outta ya'll I ever been interested in is upstairs in that bed holding my boy. So unless you got some real wisdom to shed instead of tryin' to chap my ass, get the hell outta here. I got other shit to think about than you an' your delusions that every man 'round here wants to see your tits."

The silence that settled between them was so heavy that Daryl was starting to feel suffocated, his chest heaving with the effort to not let loose his irritation any further, and just when he was about to walk away and ignore her, her teeth shone in the light of the moon and she snickered at him. Her eyes crinkled up in the corners, she eyed him up and down, and she raised it to a throaty chuckle. She slapped her hand over her mouth when it looked like she might take it to another level but then she seemed to find an inner ability to tamp her misplaced amusement down and finally he found her eyes glistening with approval.

"So why do you think you called her 'Maggie'?"

He huffed a long, stressed breath and hunched his shoulders, looking up at the second story of the house with a mix of yearning and dread.

"Ain't plannin' on sayin' it twice."

He left her chuckling outside on her own.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

**Guest: **I hope you enjoyed Michonne's role in this scene! She's a great one to have on your side. I know we never saw any scenes with Michonne and Carol on the show, but I think if she was important at all to Daryl—which seems reasonable if they'd been out hunting the Governor together—then Carol would have made a point to be close to her as well.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: HAPPY NEW YEAR! **I hope you've all had an amazing start so far to 2014. I can't complain, LOL. Straight up I need to say a major thank you to Imorca for helping me with amazing ideas and guidance through this chapter. That she likes it is incredibly meaningful to me. Secondly, Atoizzard is a true gem of enthusiasm and skill. I am grateful to have her here on my side! Also, as always, my official cheerleader makes me just want to keep on writing, just for her! Thanks, Tam!You help keep me awake until 2…3…4am!

The last chapter…OMG you guys! I'm pretty sure I passed 30 reviews for the last chapter and I am absolutely speechless and teary with amazement and gratitude. I do my best to review whatever I read and for you all to make that effort for me, well, I am deeply touched. Thank you!

Now, on with the reunion. Let me know on the other side what you think!

Part Nine

The second Michonne had left her room Carol had got out of bed, dressed back into her clothes and pulled on her boots. Through the whole process she shook, her arms and legs feeling weak with fear, with heightened awareness that she wasn't ready, she had to get ready—be prepared. She always had to be prepared. Nakedness meant only seconds to change; survival required she be ready to run at a second's warning and she'd learned over the last seven months to never let down her guard, never rest without her shoes on. She could never allow herself to stop because pausing to pull on pants or a jacket meant the difference between escaping or being crowded by more walkers than she could manage. There had been too many close calls, too many moments where she'd literally closed her eyes and stabbed and jabbed with the ferocity required to keep herself and the child she carried alive, and every hair-raising second she'd be thinking of Daryl, of what he'd taught her, of how to keep moving her body to throw the dead off, to bypass their slobbering jaws, how to smash their teeth with blunt objects if it was impossible for her knife to lodge into their brains.

The memories were vivid, no matter if she seemed to be somewhere safe. With her pants buttoned and still managing to grip around her now narrowing waist, Carol heaved a shaky gasp, sat on the edge of the bed and tried to control the thumping beat of her heart. Her son slept bundled up in the middle of the bed, his pinked complexion rosy and healthy despite how much she'd gone without, how much she'd suffered to give him a chance. She'd not had the opportunity to really stop and realise he was there, not without Daryl or one of her old group peering in and disrupting her equilibrium. And the new people—new faces scared her. Old faces scared her, she realised. Seeing Carl had almost torn her out of her skin with fear, wondering what he wanted from her—what revealing their secret might do to the group. She felt so on edge she didn't know what to do, wanting to run out of there and not face any of them, but knowing how impossible it would be to get far with Beau.

Besides, she was relatively certain that by the time she made it downstairs to the front door, Daryl would know what she'd done and he'd come storming in to stop her doing anything to take the child away. And he was right, as much as she hated it, as much as she feared where this could all go, she knew he deserved to know his son. The stress of regret squeezed hard in her chest, and then suddenly everything hurt. Her eyes and her nose, her throat, all of her rebelled against leaving, against moving from this room and risking never seeing Daryl again. She was furious with herself, furious that she couldn't control the tears that bubbled up and spilled over. She remembered it from when she'd had Sophia, her days in hospital before going home with Ed had been filled with euphoric tears, her joy at finally being a mother. That joy had returned, though it was buried so deep beneath her terror that this child could be ripped away from her at any time and there'd again be nothing she could do to stop it, despite becoming strong, despite becoming a woman who could protect herself and survive.

She was almost hyperventilating when Daryl re-entered the room. Hands covering her face, fingernails digging into her scalp to try and force the fear away with ten half-moons of pain. He pulled her hands away, preventing further damage, clasping her shuddering hands briefly before letting go of her to go stand against the wall, his hands tucked into his armpits in such a familiar pose of discomfort that it drew her completely out of herself and catapulted her back into the past when she'd never had to second-guess the relationship they'd had. When she could gaze upon him at any point of time and know exactly what he was thinking, know intuitively how he felt. It left her hollowed out and emotionally empty that she'd lost that—that she'd thrown it away before she'd realised he'd left a part of himself within her. He threw a glance at the baby, his whole body relaxing even as his face warmed and a blush stole up his neck to his ears.

"You didn't sleep with Rick."

She bristled immediately, so thoroughly hurt by the accusation, considering all she'd been through by Rick's hand, that she could have cut him clean through for making her feel like that. There was so much she wanted to say; she wanted to spew so much bitterness at his feet that she knew he'd be shocked, but one look at Daryl's face, how he stared at her with such naïve, boyish hope and the words suddenly froze in her throat. She shook her head instead, swallowing hard at the lump expanding in her throat, swelling with her tears.

"An' you didn't sleep with Ryan."

She snapped then, anger tearing through her so fast she could barely keep a handle on it. "I slept with you, you idiot." She was completely disarmed, deflated when instead of arguing, instead of throwing more accusations at her, more excuses, he grinned. He looked proud of himself, like he'd achieved the greatest feat of his life.

"Was it good?"

She was grateful he was being an ass. It made it so much easier to crush down the wall of grief she'd been trying to keep contained since the night he'd obliterated her heart, ripping it out the second he said Maggie's name as he'd drifted off to sleep.

"Why don't you go ask Maggie?" she suggested, bitterness dripping from her tongue, shattering his smiling face and superseding it with a frown that seemed more than skin deep.

"I'm askin' you," he said gently, and before she could blink away more hormonal tears from her tight, exhausted eyes, he'd reached out and taken one of her hands, his thumb caressing her in a surprisingly gentle gesture that had her momentarily forgetting how to breathe. A maelstrom of emotion exploded inside her, a war between strife and love and she felt the frustrating sting of her nose before she swiped at it angrily, wishing she could be past this stage, could find her equilibrium and try to deal with this meeting with something a little more composed.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Her voice came out as a whimper, and it scratched across her nerves, setting every part of her on edge, on alert. She startled when his warm hand cupped the side of her face and sense memory blind-sided her. Him touching her was something she'd never thought she'd have again; it had been a dream she'd teased and tortured herself with for all the months she'd been banished, craving the sensation of not just his naked body against hers, but his hands on her shoulders to ease out the tension when it got too much, when he'd trust her enough to put his hand in hers when she helped him up from the ground. There'd been times when he'd even hugged her, when he'd allowed her to place a quick kiss against the roughness of his cheek—and the one time he'd quickly returned the favour, catching the corner of her mouth when she'd not been expecting it and moved, both of them silent and still, not wanting to break whatever spell had sprung up to take over the moment with erotic tension.

"I'm not tryin' to hurt you."

She believed him, the grating sincerity exposed in the emotional gravel of his tone, the soft stroke of his thumb along her fingers.

"Just seeing you again hurts," she confessed, wishing it were different and knowing she should be telling him that it wasn't just him, but everything. Her body ached from childbirth, her heart throbbed with the shock of renewed longing for him, and every single cell in her body yearned for them to connect as a family. All three of them. To be something that Rick had always put above the group—the welfare of his own flesh and blood, only this time it could be hers, and Daryl would see her and Beau as his priority.

"Same here, but for me it's a good hurt. I thought you were dead." He said it so matter-of-factly, that his belief in her never stemmed as far as allowing her possible survival out in the world on her own, and as much as it angered her, she couldn't blame him for that. They all knew there was safety in numbers, that no one could make it on their own anymore, so that she had survived, and not just survived but was found doubled with the addition of a baby Dixon, it was nothing more than a gift.

"I couldn't give up." She shivered as his touch left the innocence of her hand, ghosted lightly over her wrist and then slowly trailed up her arm. Her breath hitched in her chest and her eyes fell closed as his hand slipped from her arm to her waist and then his lips were at the crook of her neck.

"You gave my son life." The awe in his voice bounced off the walls inside her head, molten heat thundering through her veins and she leaned into him, craving the proof that he really was here, that he was near her, protecting her, and he'd protect their son now, too.

She nodded, her throat clogged and useless. His lips skimmed against the shell of her ear and she shuddered violently, her stomach a swirling pit of emotion as her hands gripped his flanks, fingers tense and clinging to his shirt.

"Daryl?"

"I missed you." His arms went around her and he pulled her tight to his body, his head tucked in securely between her shoulder and her neck, and he trembled as he held her. His voice had sounded like he'd been choking, his normal gruff tones caught trying to jump over a block of emotion he'd never shared with her before. "You're not leavin' again. You're not takin' him away."

She wanted to push him away, flay him into strips over Maggie, but the discontinuity of his actions now and then left her teetering unsurely on a crumbling edge. It felt too good to have him close—closer than she'd ever really had him before—and it was perplexing to have him so open to her without her having been through a huge build-up of trust to get there. He was _already_ there and the confusion was immense. The relief was exquisite.

But then he was letting go, and before she could stop the squeak of disappointment, he'd taken a step back and peered at her through a gaze so intense she found it impossible to let even one tiny muscle react.

"We need to sort this Maggie shit out right now," he said through a narrow-eyed scrutiny that made her squirm with guilt. She had no reason to feel guilty, not when it was him that had come to her bed while imagining carnal satisfaction with another woman. She had nothing to apologise for on misleading him about their true relationship, and she burned with resentment that he somehow made her feel like she ought to.

"What's to sort out? You came to my bed drunk, had sex with me, and then called me Maggie as you were going to sleep." She held herself together on a narrow edge, arms crossed over her battered heart, feeling the act of betrayal all over again.

He looked introspective, biting on his bottom lip, mimicking her crossed arms before darting a longing glance to his sleeping baby. "An' you're sure that's all I said?"

Carol expelled an impatient groan. "God, do I really have to relive the worst night of my life?"

Troubled eyes shot up to clash with hers and she could see a wound in his she'd never have expected.

"Ain't what it was to me." Raw pain gripped her fiercely, shaking her off her sure stand until she was teetering helplessly to the side, unsure now where she stood. Breathing hurt, so she held the necessary air in, eyes wide and half afraid. She could barely manage a tortured, broken whisper, hope so visceral she wondered if she was bleeding inside for the need of it.

"What was it to you?"

"You made me think it was a dream," he accused, and the savageness of his hurt didn't just chip away at her righteousness, but slaughtered it where she stood. "It was the best night of _my_ life. The night I told you I wanted more'n what we had. Told you I wanted what Glenn and Maggie had."

She believed him, and God, did having such unquestionable faith in his words hurt.

"You…wanted us to…be like Maggie…and Glenn?"

He shrugged his shoulders, that shy, boyish little smile sprouting out of the corner of his mouth as he tried to look at her straight without lifting his eyes too far from the floor. It was the look that made her melt as well as made her body burn and she'd always been convinced he was completely oblivious to his effect on her. Now, she wondered if maybe it had all been manufactured to make her slowly simmer toward a relationship she'd never seriously considered she could have.

"Oh."

The realisation of what she'd tossed away due to insecurity blindsided her. Carol was struck speechless, her hand fluttering over her heart. Her legs felt suddenly weak and before she knew it they'd given out completely, but before she hit the floor, he'd gathered her in his arms and manoeuvred her to the bed, sitting by her side and somehow managing to catch her hand in his. He raised her knuckles to his lips and months of solitude—terrifying, lonely and emotionally crippling—faded away as the warmth that was always simmering beneath the cool blue of his irises burned his intention straight into her. She accepted it with a subtle pressure on their linked hands, refusing to look away now that he was so blatant about accepting what she'd only yearned to have been there all along. He didn't need to say another word, the months apart shifting to show her she could read him just as well as she always could, and this time he wasn't shirking away, he wasn't hiding behind insecurities or a lack of confidence. He was just there, like he always had been, and the wall Rick had forced between her and the others was knocked down in one booming strike, Dixon style.

"Hey, just breathe." He cupped his hand around her chin, his thumb sweeping drugging strokes along her bottom lip and she gasped at the bolt of longing that exploded in her heart. She'd tried so hard to lock him out, but no matter what she did, he'd stayed, guiding her silently as she'd grown his child in her belly. "Everythin's gonna be just fine." His rough reassurance calmed her somewhat, and the panic that such an unexpected burst of emotion and reunion had created started to settle and still within her. "I promise." And then his lips brushed so gently against hers, a whisper of a touch that wiped everything from her mind but him. Her surroundings withdrew into white noise and he finally delivered on the promise that had lain dormant between them for too long, irrevocably lost the minute Rick had condemned her to live on the outside of the group, surrendering all her relationships as if she was worth nothing. His kiss told her she was still worth _something _to him. More than something, everything.

When he pulled back, leaving her lips tingling and her body flushed, he rested his forehead against hers and chuckled at her uneven efforts for breath, mirrored by his own.

"I'm sorry I fucked things up. Gettin' blind drunk prob'ly not the best idea when decidin' to declare your love."

The force of the word almost flattened her with shock. "What?"

He watched her carefully as she drew back to stare at him, her eyes so wide they hurt.

"What you mean, what?"

She shook her head urgently, frantically and gulped, gasped through several syncopated breaths.

"What did you say?"

His brows knit together in a frown truly impressive and Carol balanced precariously on a ledge with hope on one side and heartbreak yawning out beneath her, its arms held open for her fall.

He blew out a jerky breath and sat back, running his hand through his hair—hair that was still too long and covered most of his face. "That night…weren't meant to be about sex, you know? Guess when I found you sleepin', words didn' matter as much as I thought actions would."

"Oh, Daryl." She laughed softly, grasping her head between her hands as she realised how truly that night had been screwed up by the both of them. "You really need to learn to use your words."

He opened his mouth to say something, but then someone's steps thundered up the stairs and the hall, and a woman Carol had never seen before fell against the door jamb out of breath. "Herd," she relayed quickly, and Carol was mesmerised by the gun she had slung across her shoulder, her hair in one long ponytail down her back. "They're flooding in down the east end of the street. We need to get out now."

Daryl was on his feet like a shot, his hands already gathering equipment. "Send Lilly up here. You know the drill. Girls go with Ty and Sasha. You come with me an' Lilly."

She was gone before Carol could follow the conversation, but the words were enough. They had to run, and this time she had a baby to protect. This time she had diminished strength and more to live for and she almost panicked until Daryl grasped her, turned her and started winding and tying a sheet around her body.

"Learned this was a good way to carry Ass-kicker when we had to run. Can keep him close to you but still have your knife out." His eyes burned with determination, and before Carol could even bend to pick up her son, Daryl had scooped him up off the bed, deposited a quick kiss to his tiny forehead and wrapped him securely in the hand-made papoose. Lilly rushed around the room gathering as much as she could while Daryl pressed Carol's cherished knife back into her hands. "Time to go." His arm around her back, he directed her to the door, collecting his crossbow from the wall as he ushered them out. Less than a minute later they were in his car, the two strangers sitting behind her, and Carol stunned at how quickly he functioned to slot her and Beau into his escape routine. He'd put them first and it absolutely blew her away.


	10. Chapter 10

AN: As sometimes happens, this chapter did not start out like this. In a fit of frustration, I abandoned what I'd planned on being Part 10, and started again. The original Part 10 might just end up being Part 11, but it remains to be seen!

I want to apologise for the last chapter. I accidentally implied it was the last one, and it obviously wasn't, but if it had been you people would have completely blown me away with the 40 reviews you laid on me. Holy God! I didn't even know it was possible for someone to get 40 reviews for a chapter, so I am thoroughly in awe of you all, and so very, very grateful that this story resonates with you all so strongly. I can't tell you at all what it means to me. I hope you enjoy this next part of the tale! ~ Megan

Part Ten

The miles rolled through him like the bleating memory of fantasies he'd had as a kid. The car humming along, him and Merle sitting in the back seat while his Ma and Pa sat in the front, chatting about their big adventure out into the world, travelling from their house to somewhere spectacular that wasn't home—just like in the movies. Only, it was never true. Not once could he remember being in a car with his whole family unless it was coming back from the hospital, or from his grandpa's, or someplace else that would guarantee the end of the trip captioned in violence. Daryl glanced to his side, saw Carol with his son held lovingly in her arms, and with one force of determination, he shut those old memories out and opened up his mind and heart to new ones. This was his family now, and while he might not be taking Carol on the vacation of a lifetime, giving her a reprieve from the horror life had become for them all, he was still taking her somewhere new, somewhere filled with hope. He was sharing something new and exciting with her, with his family, and he felt strange, like it had brought his fantasies full circle and a wish had been granted without him being aware he'd even asked for it.

She wasn't fighting very hard to hide her nerves. Several times he caught her watching him uncertainly and it troubled him in ways that were new. When he'd first met her he'd fallen into a routine of worrying about her, how she was dealing with her little girl lost out in the woods. They talked about Sophia, when he wasn't out searching, and every story she'd shared about the girl had made him more determined to find her, broke his heart a little more when he didn't. When he couldn't. Even now he couldn't work out if he'd been sure she was out there still, taking refuge in an old house, waiting for him to save her, of if he'd known it as a twisting, perverse certainty in his gut that she was long dead and he was hunting down nothing more than a ghost who'd left them behind long before. Not that it mattered, because once she'd stumbled out of that barn, he'd felt like everything was over for the pair of them. The pain had hit him with a force he'd never expected, because while he'd never known Sophia well herself, he'd gotten to know her intimately through Carol's memories, and losing a kid he'd slowly allowed to sink into his heart almost cleaved the organ in two.

In many ways, he felt overwhelmed right now. Yesterday he'd been a man pushing through each day with little focus but to keep the others alive the best way he knew how, but if he ever stopped long enough to concentrate on something not related to feeding or fighting, he'd feel himself sinking like a stone into a quagmire of grief that he just couldn't allow to happen. Not if he was going to make it, and if he gave up, he'd suffer guilt for eternity that he'd opted out—took the easy road away from all the shit that continued to pile up in front of him until he was almost buried beneath it. He'd lost optimism long ago—lost it, buried it, fucked it in the ass and cried over its withered corpse. There was so very little of himself he'd had left to give, and all of it he'd saved for the kids. He shut off from Rick, never finding the space in his heart to forgive his friend for taking Carol away and leaving her where Daryl was unable to follow. His connection to the others was weak, based more on duty and honour than friendship, even though he appreciated Glenn and Michonne fighting against it, but the kids, the kids could still make him feel. Could make him hurt with the hope they brought to the world. The hope that Carol was still out there somewhere, alive, maybe with another group. Maybe with another friend.

Judith had learned to walk in the months since they'd fled the prison and as he observed her first step, his first impulse was to find Carol and cheer for the triumph. But she wasn't there. It shouldn't have been possible for Judith Grimes to make it to her first birthday, not while they were out on the road, crossing the state looking for shelter while hordes of the dead shuffled after them in ever growing numbers. It shouldn't have been possible for those milestones to start adding up, yet it was, and it was less possible for his heart to accept that Carol wasn't there to share them. It wasn't the first time—he'd thought her gone when Judith was first born. He'd found her, lost and almost dead, hiding in the dark, and he'd dragged her out and made sure she was forever in the light after that. Until Rick tore it away.

Now she was back, and everything he'd lost, every single minute of every emotion he'd shut out in self-protection, rushed right back through him in a tidal wave so fierce that it almost knocked him on his ass.

She didn't like having strangers at her back. She never said anything, but the way she started to dart wary glances over her shoulder but stopped herself before she could be obvious to the others gave her game away. He could see in her face that she was putting her trust in him, that he wouldn't have Lilly and Tara in the car with her if he didn't think it was safe, and her faith pumped him up until he felt his back straighten and a small, hidden grin sprouted on his lips.

He relaxed into the repetitive burr of the engine and the tires turning over on the road, the steady miles they put between them and their last refuge. Single walkers drifted out of the trees and then wandered across fields, summonsed by the blur of their procession across Georgia and as he sank into this familiar routine, he took the risk to watch her, allowing the sharp blue of her eyes to hypnotise him toward a sense of comfort and pleasure he'd never known could exist. She filled his heart to bursting, and while she shifted nervously in her seat, her skittering glances never quite making it over her shoulder, and as she aimed shy smiles at him whenever she caught him looking at her in awe, he wondered how he could have ever let himself risk losing her in the first place.

He was never going to get tired of watching her feed the baby. He felt like a creeper every time his son started gawping his little mouth open, sucking on air, telling the world without angry cries that he was hungry, and Carol was there, pre-empting him every time, gently rubbing her nipple across his lips until he opened wide enough to take it all in, and try as he might, it stirred him every time. He could barely peel his eyes away to watch the road. He felt like her breasts should be something he wasn't supposed to see so readily yet, being that he only had his clouded imagination to get him through what he remembered of their one night together, but seeing her in this context, feeding his young, nurturing their offspring, filled him with such a rush of love and wonderment he'd felt but rarely in his life. He'd seen the hint of her breasts many times, had worshipped the style of tops she'd preferred to wear in the Georgia heat. He'd give his eyes permission to wander and his mind easily embellished the reality until he'd always had to walk away before making an ass of himself, but now… Now he unapologetically soaked in the sights: the curve of her full, milky white breast, the dusky nipple he wanted to rub his thumb over to see if she reacted to him like he did to her. Every time she caught him looking he shied away, ducking his head as his face burned and a compulsive grin heralded a boyish chuckle. He chewed the edge of his thumb, looked sideways at her and wanted to bounce in his seat because this woman was his, this child was his and he was finally taking them home. She stared at him, overcome at his lightness and laughter, and he figured she'd not ever really seen him happy. Not for a long while, anyway. And it floored him that that's what he was: happy. And all he'd needed was to see her face again and have her securely back at his side.

Time passed by in silence and he couldn't help but wonder about the girls in the back, usually a lot more friendly but on this occasion, as closed as a steel trap. Reserved and careful. In the rear-view he caught a few confusing faces pulled by Lilly as she stared sadly at Carol, and once he even thought he'd caught her with a tear or two rolling down her cheek. He hadn't considered how she might feel being in the car with them, had thought only of Carol and Beau and the need for medical attention if anything happened. He'd had to keep her close and now he flinched at his own selfishness.

Carol played with Beau during the baby's wakeful moments, cooing at him like she'd done with Judith, and just like that all concerns about the girls evaporated from his head. Beau's startlingly clear blue eyes captivated him completely and he felt himself melt at what it meant, that it wasn't just him sitting in the vehicle embarking on their next leg toward survival. There were parts of himself now he'd shared, parts that he'd never get back, and parts of himself that would grow into something else, something pretty wonderful. His one goal on this earth was to make sure that happened, make sure that Carol and Beau lived to tell the new world all about the old.

"He looks like you." His voice came out rusty and old, like he'd kept it hidden in a box for months. He cleared his throat, checked the road reaching out in front of him, clear and free. His heart stuttered at Carol's smile—her serenity smoothing out all the leftover lines of discontent.

"Michonne says he looks like Merle."

He snorted and couldn't help but wonder what Merle might have made of that. He couldn't see it, only that the shade of blue of the boy's eyes tilted more toward his mother than any Dixon Daryl had ever known.

"Best not be callin' him, Beau then," Daryl joked, ignoring the clump of grief stuck heavily in his throat. "Merle ain't never been beautiful one day in his whole life."

Her tears surprised him and he struggled to hold his own back as he reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers.

"Would you like to make his middle name Merle?"

The simple generosity of making his brother a part of this squeezed at his heart and he gulped forcefully twice before he could look at her.

"Yeah. That'd be good."

"So, Beau Merle Dixon?" She watched him carefully, like she was searching for some dishonesty he might try to hide from her, but all he had was the desire to worship her forever. He nodded, not trusting his voice to deliver a steady note at all, and brought her hand up to his lips. As he held their clasped hands to his mouth, he closed his eyes for a second and just breathed her in and remembered. He'd lost his brother, but he hadn't lost her, and in his son, he had it all.


	11. Chapter 11

AN: I have to give great thanks to Imorca for this chapter, because without her a great chunk of this would have been missing, and rewriting it might have taken me a week after the depression finally lifted. Thank you all again for being such magic, wonderful readers. Your reviews take my breath away! And last, but not least, Atoizzard for reading through and giving me the green light to post!

Part Ten

Every now and again she recognised the roads they were travelling. It might have been a certain car on the side of the road that pinpointed a memory of those long months they'd been on the run before they'd found the prison. Sometimes it was a street sign. Most of the time, she had no clue where they were and even less of where they were heading. T-Dog had always controlled the map—now she had no idea who did. Their car was in the middle of the convoy with Rick, Michonne, Carl and Judith out front, Glenn, Maggie next, their car, and then followed up with Tyreese and Sasha and the girls. Carol wondered why the two strangers sat behind her, talking quietly in the back seat, and it made her extremely nervous to have them there. She had to put her trust in Daryl, and he'd spent the last six months with them, trusted them with weapons and watch, so Carol thought she could at least follow his lead. It didn't take away all her apprehension, though it soothed some of her inner anxiety to allow him to take on some of the burden. It was easier than she'd expected.

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" Daryl eyed her out of the side of his bangs, switching his attention from her to the road to Beau, his face soft and relaxed considering they were once again trying to outrun a herd of walkers.

"T-Dog," Carol hedged, and sighed when he dropped a hand from the steering wheel to reach across and grasp one of hers. And thinking about T naturally fell to thinking about Lori and the pain of losing her friend surged up with a fresh batch of tears. She'd been so lucky where Lori hadn't been. Lori had had them all to support her through her pregnancy and the expected birth, and yet when the time came, all the planning and knowledge had meant nothing. Carol had been alone, mournfully alone. Not only had her baby survived, but Carol had been found and reunited with the man she loved. The man she didn't want to live without. "And Lori."

"We've lost too many," Daryl agreed, his voice low like he was sharing a big, sad secret, and maybe it was, the two girls sitting in the back not having a clue who these fallen members of their group were. Of the impact that losing them had had on them all. "Tired of losin' people." His grip tightened around her fingers and Carol tried not to wince. She got his message, loud and clear. He wasn't losing her or his baby, and she'd do everything in her power to make sure she kept them on the winning team.

Beau slept peacefully for hours, like the tired little newborn he was, and whenever he stirred, Carol fed him, remembering the demand schedule she'd become expert at when Sophia had been barely bigger than a pup. Already Carol could tell he'd be a calm baby, enough of his daddy's blood running through his veins to react to situations with a patience and methodology that wouldn't stir or endanger those around him. As Daryl drove, Carol allowed herself to get lost in her little miracle. Memories of the night she'd held Daryl in her arms—the night they'd created their little boy—replayed in her mind so fresh she could almost believe it was only yesterday. Having Daryl beside her in the flesh added a new sense of reality that she'd wondered had been slipping in the last months of her banishment, and her heart picked up a nervous rhythm on knowing that this wasn't a dream. She'd hidden for months, feeding on whatever food she could find—some days having to go without if there were too many walkers on the prowl. She'd fought, and searched, and moved on as best she could until by the seventh month she'd become so slow in her movements, so weak in her body and spirit that she knew it was more dangerous to venture away from her safe spot than it was to stay locked up within it. Her store of food had been minimal at best and even now she could feel how slim she was, felt the weakness of her muscles, and wondered how Daryl could even stand to look at her. She'd failed—she should have been able to find more, plan better, and keep herself healthy enough to care for her baby once he'd been born. Instead she'd been so drained she hadn't even remained conscious once she'd survived the searing pain of his head crowning. She didn't remember anything else, feeling for the cord around his neck such a fuzzy memory that she suspected that's when her eyes closed and she'd been unable to open them again. Nature must have taken over, guiding her body through the rest of the delivery and it had been nothing but luck that allowed her boy to take his first breath and then not freeze to death. Daryl should be so angry at her—if he hadn't found them they'd most likely be dead now. She was angry and disappointed in herself enough for the both of them, she decided.

"You girls got anything back there Carol can eat? Some water or somethin'?" Daryl peered over his right shoulder at the back seat passengers, his face scrunched up in concern as they dug around in their bags. A bottle of water was handed to him and he turned back to the road, passing it to Carol and she held it with both hands, grateful that Beau was snuggled up against her chest within the sling she still wore.

"Thank you," she mumbled, the sound that came out of her throaty and rough being the perfect indication that she was thirsty. A relatively fresh apple was passed across next, cold fingers crushing against Carol's shoulder and she started forward, trying to hold back the startled whimper against having a stranger suddenly in her space. The apple fell from Tara's hand and bounced on the seat by Carol's thigh. "I'm sorry." The apology fluttered from her lips as her heart pounded rapidly and she tried to make herself smaller as she crushed herself against the door.

"It's okay." Tara shrank back against the seat, sharing a quick, uncertain glance with the other one that was a nurse, and Carol concentrated on steadying her breathing. Awkwardness exploded within the confines of the car but Daryl seemed completely oblivious to it. Or he was so used to the group being awkward and quiet that he'd just adapted and now took it in stride.

Carol focused on drinking the water, feeling tears of relief sting her eyes as the cool liquid quenched the dehydration breastfeeding could magnify. She almost inhaled the apple, succumbing to the ravenous hunger months of neglect had built up. She ignored Daryl's concerned stare, keeping her eyes on the road and trying to wrap her head around how much her life had changed in the last twenty-four hours.

Her mind drifted with her thoughts, the scenery as the passed through woods as thick as those she remembered around Hershel's farm into clear open fields, the memories of over a year ago during their interlude on the farm beckoning to her as her last real refuge, her last link to Sophia. She felt guilt, driving alongside the one man in the world who she knew could keep them safe through his will alone, a brand new little life snuggled up tight in her arms, and Sophia, wearing a monster's face and buried down deep in the hollow ground. Those images of the last time she'd seen what had become of Sophia screamed out of nowhere and Carol gasped, tasting salt on her lips. She swiped at the tears in frustration. This wasn't who she was now, this person who dissolved into tears at every difficult memory. She couldn't allow herself to mire in survivor's guilt over her son just because she'd been unable to protect her daughter.

"Gonna have to stop soon and make camp for the night." Daryl's voice startled her out of her dark contemplations and she looked around her, noticing how the sun was dipping low in the sky and that the car in front of them was slowing down, obviously keeping an eye out for somewhere to stop.

"If you don't mind," came a voice from the back, cold, empty, so devoid of life that it made Carol shiver with apprehension. "I'd like to travel in a different car for the rest of the trip."

Daryl nodded, his face scrunched up in thought, not arguing it like he'd expected something of the sort. "You can go with Maggie and Glenn. Tara stays, though."

The nurse. Carol ducked her head, contemplated her son's smooth and gentle sleepiness and wondered why the nurse wanted so strongly to get away from her. A sticky, squishy ball of dread vibrated inside her gut, surging up and expanding with every pulse of her blood. Daryl had said something when she'd first awoken, but the details were fuzzy. She could remember her less than grateful response when her eyes had finally opened to find a stranger leaning over her. Carol's first thought went to her baby, and recognition that she was no longer where she had been struck her with painful force, then winching fear had torn her away from common-sense, preparing her to do whatever needed to be done to get back to safety. She hadn't known the nurse was a new member of her old group, a fresher face Carol just hadn't met. She hadn't known they'd lost the prison and that the home she'd thought would be there if she ever could go back, would never be again. All she'd known was the terror of surviving a brutal, cruel world on her own, and she'd acted on it.

"I'm sorry," Carol offered, straining to see Lilly across her shoulder. It wasn't easy when the woman sat right behind her and intentionally avoided Carol's strained glance. "I shouldn't have attacked you when I woke up."

Her eyes held a grief so deep that Carol froze, wondering briefly if she truly recognised it before banishing the possibility away. The anguish of someone who had lost everything important and resented being reminded of it. Carol had never experienced that with Lori, carefully reaching a point between them where discussions of the baby her friend carried infused them both with hope—and she'd needed to adopt that attitude as much to save Lori's heart as much as her own. This woman hadn't moved beyond her loss, and Carol was certain now it had been a child. She was stuck in a place that harboured darkness and discontent, felted pain against pain until the wedge of the join was so thick she almost choked with it. Carol read it as plain as day in the woman's unwavering stare and it put her every sense on edge. She felt like she should warn Daryl, but of what she wasn't quite sure, and she wasn't positive she wouldn't come out as the one more crazy if she gave voice to the suspicions that were bouncing around in her own head.

"It's fine." The emotionless delivery of the words was accompanied with the turn of her head, a thousand-yard stare out the window blocking out the other occupants of the car as decisively as if she'd screamed in their faces to leave her alone. The other one, Tara, aimed a confused shrug at Daryl's silent enquiry and then it was dropped, Daryl back to concentrating on the road, Tara staring out her own window and Carol…Carol sat hunched up against her door, not willing to completely turn her back on someone she suddenly saw as a threat, and she tried not to give in to the temptation to panic.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The whole trip so far had been filled with head-thumping trauma, so when they finally followed the others and stopped at an off road picnic spot, Sasha resisted the temptation to smash her throbbing head into a tree to alleviate the one word that had been on irritating repeat since they'd left the house.

"Carol!" Mika and Lizzie leapt out of the car after Sasha, rushing straight by her to the other cars, searching each one for the sight of their proxy-mother who'd been ripped away from them barely before they'd all been able to get comfortable together.

"Thank God," she hissed under her breath, more than ready to be rid of the pair that hadn't stopped talking about seeing Carol again the entire time they'd sat in the car. Sasha was getting close to snapping and, every time she gritted her teeth, the tell-tale tick in her jaw giving her away to her brother, he'd glare at her hard enough to make her choke the aggravation down again.

"Sasha, you need to get over this." Tyreese was by her side before she could walk away to the others, slinging both of their packs over one burly shoulder.

"Why?" she hissed, not for the first time completely bewildered at how he could just forgive a woman for killing his girlfriend. "You've always been soft, but this is murder. She killed Karen, and I don't care if she's got a baby," Sasha declared hotly, hand on hip as she glared at Ty, refusing to waver even as she heard the very quiet strains of a baby's cry. "She shouldn't be here."

"Let it go, Sash. She's not going anywhere and I'm not going to be the one to force a woman with a baby out there to be killed. I don't want that on my head." He looked away from her, avoiding her eyes, and that made her even more furious.

She reeled back, shaking her head and releasing an incredulous laugh. "I don't get you at all," she said, glaring at the ground so she could try and drag back the impulse that made her want to lash out at her own brother. "She killed your girlfriend. Have you forgotten that?"

His expression softened and he took a step closer. "You was in there, you saw. By the time we got back, was there anyone left who got sick as early as Karen and David?"

She thought back, remembering when she'd made her own sojourn into quarantine, finding Dr. S in just as bad shape as what she'd been in, but before she'd even made it to the stairs, she'd collapsed against a cell where someone had already turned. By the end, there hadn't been many of them left at all, and none that had fallen sick the previous day. It didn't matter, she decided.

"That's not the point." She took a deep breath, her face fixated around a frown as she looked low over the rest of the group, leaving their transportation and already preparing a perimeter for their overnight camp, securing it against walkers. "It wasn't her decision."

"She was protecting the group." He was steadfast in his words and Sasha stared at him in disbelief.

"She was killing the group, Tyreese," she appealed, almost beside herself with incredulity.

"It doesn't matter anymore," he said with such finality it made her head spin. "She's here now and Daryl won't be letting her go anywhere, so you either deal with it or you make the decision to drive a wedge through the group. It's your choice."

He spun on his heel and stomped away, taking their things into the inner sanctum of the camp, now fixing a small fire so they could at least prepare something for dinner. She shook her head, rocking back and forth and taking a series of deep breaths to try and calm herself down. Tyreese was right in one respect, Daryl wasn't going to let Carol leave, and they couldn't let him go with her. Even she knew that he would. He'd shadowed Carol from the second the woman had been found. Sasha didn't get it. She'd known they were close before, and she'd suspected they were closer than they'd ever let anyone know, but she'd thought that the woman's crime should have at least killed some of the devotion Daryl had toward her. It drove her crazy that she'd apparently been wrong.  
Bristling with anger, her hands were tied. If even Tyreese was fine with Carol's presence, there was nothing she could do about it. She just hoped none of them got too comfortable. Who knew when the next disaster would occur with Carol deciding to eradicate a threat and it turned out to be one of them.


	12. Chapter 12

AN: So, I'm not sure I'm actually happy with this one. Things need to move on, informations shared etc, though I'm not certain I'm in the right frame of mind to continue. Anyway, I appreciate each and every one of you for sticking to this story. You all make it better than it was ever meant to be. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart!

Part Twelve

Daryl untangled Carol from the sling and took Beau into his arms just as Mika and Lizzie found her, both girls flinging themselves at her in a tearful reunion. Daryl ducked his head to observe his son, hiding his grin at how easily Carol accepted the girl's, feeling for the moment that everything might just work out all right. Carol watched him over the girl's heads as she hugged them, held them tight, reassuring herself as much as them that they really were back together, and while he held her gaze, the first tear slid down her cheek and her chin wobbled. Wanting to give them some privacy, Daryl tucked his son into the crook of his arm, taking note with a grimace at the ominous squelch of his diaper, and strode off in the direction of camp being set up. Everyone knew their role after spending so many months shifting from place to place. This was the first time the group as a whole had ventured so far from the prison, and while Daryl was worried about the trip, worried about their destination, he still couldn't wipe the smile off his face.

"Looks good on you, Dixon," Michonne said as she sidled up to him, carrying a bag of their canned food, of which only a small store remained.

If it were possible, Daryl grinned even brighter, for the first time really getting the sense of pride that came with being a father—the unconditional rush of love for the little tangle of limbs that made up his flesh and blood, the last in this world now that Merle was gone. For a minute melancholy threatened to tighten its claws around him and drag him away from this moment, but he wouldn't let it. He'd spent months fighting it off, sometimes succumbing when he was alone and his distress at losing Carol, the prison, Beth and Hershel became overwhelming. This time it had no chance, because with Carol back in the group, and with her his son peering innocently up at him with droopy eyelids, Daryl didn't think he'd felt happier in all his life.

Rick, Michonne and Glenn took care of checking the perimeter while Tara, Maggie and Sasha took to organising the camp. Judith played on a blanket spread amongst the leaves, a distracted Lilly keeping watch over her while she attempted to ready a meal for the toddler. Tyreese stood off to the side talking with Carl, the boy—not so much a boy anymore but on the edge of adulthood, all limbs and big ideas and a moral compass that was still sometimes wildly off-centre—nodding now and again but mostly with a scowl fixed on his face. Tyreese huffed impatiently but before he was finished talking, Carl shook his head dismissively and walked away. Daryl made his way over, wanting to know what Ty was trying to forestall and making sure there wasn't going to be trouble brewing under their stretch of sky for the night. Sitting out in the open wasn't a situation he relished, having no idea if there were walker herds just waiting within the confines of the woods, but hoping and praying they were in the clear was a fool's job, and he was no fool. Not anymore.

Tyreese acknowledged Daryl's approach with a jerk of his head, indicating Daryl should follow him out a little and a quick glance confirmed that Rick was closest to their position. Whatever Ty was going to reveal, he didn't want Rick overhearing it, and just knowing that released the heavy stone in his gut that Daryl had been trying to ignore. There were too many things going on right now that were powder kegs just waiting for the right reason to explode. He hadn't missed Sasha's resentful glare toward Carol and the girls, and while Maggie seemed to calm considerably from the attack at the house, she still seemed a little more on edge than normal.

When Tyreese finally stopped, Daryl waited him out, conscious of the fact he was holding his son in an isolated spot, surrounded by trees and his crossbow not an easy weapon to juggle with a baby in his arms. It made him nervous, jittery, and he was tempted to turn his back and just return to the group and have safety in numbers.

The big guy looked torn, his lips pressed together as he aimed skittish glances back at various players at camp. His gaze settled on Carl and then shifted to the direction of Carol, still standing and talking with the excited little girls whose safety she'd been given but who'd then been banished from them just days after. He hefted a heavy sigh, and his body slumped, his own brand of nerves evident in the hunch of his shoulders and the jittery way he ripped the every-present black hat off his head and twisted it compulsively. "Carl wants to tell everyone he killed Karen and David."

"No," Daryl snarled, already turning around to go kick the kid's ass. He thought they'd been through this, thought Carl was working out a little bit of how to read a situation. They were exposed here, too many tempers already flying high and they didn't have the first clue what was surrounding them.

There was a snarky conversation happening around the food preparation, Sasha getting louder as she bewailed the extra mouth to feed—a new drain on their dwindling resources. Michonne attempted to quell her with a piercing look, but either Sasha was suddenly blind or just too far into her resentment to care. By the time he made it back to them the volume had risen. Carol was slowly making her way closer, her hands shaking as she hugged Lizzie to her body and she turned fearful eyes toward his. She darted a wary gaze around the camp like a terrified deer, ready to bolt into the woods. He'd already known one Peletier to do that shit, and she hadn't made it out alive. Be damned if he was having Carol streak from the camp in terror just because a few still had a stick up their ass about things.

Rick was also closing in and he was a wild card Daryl just didn't want to deal with. He quickly handed the baby over to Carol, who clung to the child like she had nothing else left in the world, and it made the anger bubble up inside him and almost froth at his mouth. He was already missing spending that short time with his son, wanting nothing more than to snatch him back and spend hours watching the little guy go through each and every little flinch and whimper. He wanted to watch as Beau peered around with his blurry newborn eyes, wanted to be one of the few faces the kid saw and began to recognise like he remembered Judith had in her early days of life. Instead, he was having to deal with group politics, trying to keep a lid on different personalities while they were out in the open and could be hit with walkers at any time.

"You need to shut this shit down right now. It ain't the time," he growled at Sasha, putting his hand up to ward off Rick's natural trajectory toward a fight.

"And when will it be '_time_,' Daryl?" Sasha countered, hand on her hip, patience worn down to a mix of indiscretion and justification. "When we've run out of food now we're feeding her double because she's breastfeeding? Or will it be time when we run into too many walkers and one of us gets taken out trying to save a murderer? She shouldn't be here. You should have left them in that basement where they belong," she finished up passionately, then gasped as she realised what she'd said about a newborn child—the only hope they had to cling to in this world, no matter the parentage.

The camp went silent and by her suddenly widening eyes and hesitant step back, Sasha was suddenly realising her words didn't reflect the opinion of the whole camp, and that perhaps her anger and frustration had pushed her into an attitude that was even worse than a woman killing two people who were sick enough to be near death anyway. She ducked her head, struggling with the swirl of emotions and opposing thoughts causing a maelstrom within her heart, and then she straightened up and confronted Daryl as an equal.

Daryl's eyes glinted with darkness, the frown around his mouth almost sinister as he stared her down, making real sure she knew that what he said was as serious as it ever got.

"That baby," he snarled savagely, his tone startling enough to carry through the whole group, "is my _son_. You tellin' me I shoulda left my own kin to rot in some basement? Like he ain't worth shit?"

The group gasped in shock, but he didn't tear his eyes away from Sasha, feeling rage pump its way through his bloodstream, fighting a latent urge toward violence he'd kept buried for a long, long time.

"Daryl?" He could feel Carol's fingers on his elbow, her touch barely there, just enough to gain his attention and the action got it sure enough, got the attention of the wild beast that had been stirred to life inside him, intent on protecting what was his at all costs. "Maybe I should just—"

"You _ain't_ leavin'." He couldn't even turn to look at her, knowing that his fierce possessiveness might scare the shit out of her, but he didn't mind scaring the shit out of anyone else. He enjoyed seeing the shift in Sasha from arrogant self-righteousness to wary self-doubt.

There was a tension that settled like a thick, viscous blanket over the group—nobody moved. Other than his own rapid breathing to try and reign in his fury, he thought everyone else might have been shocked into stillness.

Sasha finally blinked, her hand going to her throat as she swallowed against rising bile. She nodded, struggling with words and emotions until finally she croaked out an apology. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Weren't none of your damned business yet," he huffed, just wanting to walk away. He was torn, wanting to go into the woods to hunt, to see what dangers lingered too close to their camp, but wanting also to stick to Carol's side to protect her, protect their child against whatever other ugliness dwelled in the hearts of their group.

Maggie unfolded herself from Glenn's side, twisting away from Glenn's reaching arm, a too long delayed attempt to keep her out of the argument. "Daryl, you can't blame us for feelin' uncomfortable havin' her here," Maggie pointed out, throwing a nervous glance at Carol. She was closer to the old Maggie that Daryl remembered, but still her words were harsh, unforgiving and hard. "She's a murderer, Daryl, whether she's Carol or not."

"We ain't discussin' this now," Daryl dismissed, getting impatient. "We gotta keep things in pers—"

"No, we should sort this out before we go any further. Before she knows…" Maggie stopped, closed her mouth and finally succumbed to Glenn's pull on her arm and she stumbled back.

"Maggie, you have to stop this. Carol is coming with us, end of story," Glenn told her and there were more gasps from the group.

"Look, my sister and I don't even know her," Tara stated, stepping into the mix now that she'd heard the basis of the tension she'd been stepping through ever since Carol had been brought back to the house. Her voice was high and tight, like she was bordering on hysteria and even Maggie backed away when she pushed her way through. "You can't be serious about keeping a murderer in our midst, even if she is your kid's mom. Just take the kid and send her packing."

"Oh no, not this shit again." Daryl stepped right up into her face, making her shrink back at the very real threat he imposed. '"We ain't kickin' no one's ass out, ya hear? She ain't done shit to you, so you got no part in this." He glared at her, puffing hot breath in her face. "Of course, you're free to go any time."

Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl saw Carl side-step his father, rush around Tyreese so that he was barely a step away from the latest confrontation. "Daryl, I can stop this."

"No!" Carol and Daryl's voices collided and melded together, both of them wanting Carl to stay out of it. Carol stepped quickly toward him, trying to put her arm around him and sending an imploring look to Rick to gather up his son and take him far away from the situation that seemed to be unravelling too quickly for any of them to control. "Carl, don't. Please, leave it." There were tears in her eyes and Daryl cursed, angry and frustrated and helpless all in one. Every single turn they took, she ended up hurt and he was tired of it, but exposing Carl at this point wasn't an option. Unfortunately, Carl did what Carl did best and ignored what was best—ignored them entirely.

"This is my fault," he claimed as he stood before them all, staring everyone down in turn. "Carol didn't kill Karen and David. I did. Carol was protecting me all along."


	13. Chapter 13

AN: Wow. Just, wow. You guys are amazing with how much you are supporting this fic. I just want to say before you go any further, I have been asked to be the guest speaker at fans of caryl, run by AffairWithACrossbow, on Wednesday at 7:30 Eastern time. If anyone is interested at all in talking to me about my writing, I will endeavour to not be boring—please come by and check it out at www dot fansofcaryl dot com. Now, onward we go!

Part Thirteen

A shocking sense of simplicity encased Carol in that moment as drama erupted within the group. Carol cradled Beau in her arms and shut herself down to focus on just him and his needs. On her own needs. She'd just given birth; he'd travelled all day without being changed, and already she could tell he was starting to wriggle as indication that his hunger was making him ache again. _She_ was starting to ache—the prolonged labour and birth had taken a toll on her body that she still didn't feel nearly recovered from—and her heart. Oh, how her heart was sore for the trauma inflicted upon it. Overwhelming emotion blinded her to everything but protecting herself, she was done protecting Carl for now, so without paying attention at all to the others, she sought out the equipment to change her baby and herself and she moved back toward the car she'd rolled into this hell within.

Once inside the back seat of the car, Carol lay Beau down on the seat and watched him as carefully as she could while she dug about in the bag Daryl had grabbed for the baby, finding more diapers—one of those precious things amongst hard to find items now—and almost cried when she found a nearly full bag of sanitary napkins. She'd have to remember to kiss whoever was thoughtful enough to find those for her. While everyone else was preoccupied with the drama outside and, throwing her own sense of modesty out the window, she changed the maxi-pad between her legs and wrapped the soiled one up in the packaging the others had come in, dumping the extras into the larger bag that held everything else together. She did weep when she found the wipes, taking one out to clean herself a little and disposing it with the maxi-pad, then set to changing her boy's smelly butt. The complexities of disposing their trash and doing these everyday things on the road hadn't changed so much, but were harder and more gross, she was sure.

Staying in the car after was a conscious decision. Despite the weakness of her body, Carol felt emotionally raw, miserable that members of her group that she'd loved and protected had so easily turned their backs on her because of what she'd claimed to do. It hurt—hurt even more from knowing that she herself had never condemned Carl from the simple fact that she understood what he'd done. The need was in all of them to do the right thing, to do what needed to be done for the survival and protection of the group as a whole, and Carol couldn't say one way or another that if it had been left to her—if she'd thought of the solution first—that she might not have done exactly the same thing. Oh, she might have been a little more careful about it, tried not to spread blood through the place exposing them all, not left smouldering bodies for loved ones to encounter, but at the crux of it all, she wasn't so different. If she'd rationally thought killing Karen and David would have saved Lizzie and Mika's lives, saved _Daryl's _life, she'd have done it. No hesitation and she _knew it. _For a moment, when Rick had first asked her, all her previous thoughts about the crime had culminated into a vision of herself carrying it out, and so when she'd answered that she _had_ killed them, she briefly was confused about whether she had or not. It didn't matter in the long run. She'd chosen to protect Carl—and in turn protecting Rick as well, knowing that in the fragile state he'd seemed mired in back then, the truth of Carl's actions might have pushed him over the edge. By the time she'd realised she herself had pushed him over anyway, it was too late. She'd been banished, torn away from all she'd known in the last eighteen months, torn away from the people she loved more than her own life, and it was all over.

She'd been almost ready to stop being so careful when she'd realised she was pregnant, though it had taken some months and a swelling stomach when every other part of her was shrinking for her to realise the truth. Her terror had been absolute, keeping her in mute stillness for almost a week before she ventured outside again, seeking supplies. Seeking scenery to remind her that life could be beautiful—not a burden. Remind her that there were things still left to live for, that Daryl was out there somewhere and even though she'd probably never see him again, and even though he'd never know he was a father, she owed it to him to make sure the child that dwelled in her heart as much as her womb took its first breaths of life. Words spat at her in anger ricocheted around her head, _"Sophia wasn't mine." _He'd been a better father to a child he'd never spent more than two minutes with than her own father had been, so she knew without even having to think that he'd be the most wonderful father to his own child than anyone else could ever possibly be, and she owed this child that had sprung up between them, formed from her love, the chance to know what kind of man Daryl really was.

She held Beau in her arms, rocking him gently as the memory of those horrible months rolled through her head like a movie reel. The loneliness had stretched out forever, robbing her of speech most days, stealing noise away from her ears like she'd been negligent and didn't deserve to even hear life as it pressed on through time. She'd starved some days, venturing out to find fruit and vegetables in long abandoned gardens and backyards, existing on expired canned food and whatever fresh produce she could find. Most days it hadn't been enough, but she did the best she could. She'd protected them both the best she could, and now she was here, found by Daryl, safe, with her son in her arms and Daryl's protection encompassing them without thought—automatic. Natural. Like they were an extension of himself that he didn't even need to think about putting first.

Tears were running down her cheeks when Michonne opened the door and took a seat next to her, silently handing her a bottle of water and an open tin of mystery stew.

Her presence was like it usually was: quiet, respectful. She supposed at any other time it would be calming, but right now Carol felt on edge, unsure and panicked about how things were going on outside without her there to hear it all. Without her knowing what judgement had come down on Carl and how all of them felt about her now. "How are you doing? Is everything okay?"

Carol found Michonne's heartfelt concern almost debilitating. Her breath caught in her throat and for a terrifying second she thought she was going to choke to death.

"I'm fine," she lied, and in an attempt to prove it, she readied Beau for a feed and busied herself with that. He opened his mouth immediately, seeking her nipple and latched on like a professional, and while he was preoccupied, she re-learned how to feed herself over the top of a newborn. It was a skill quickly remembered, she found, as her body greedily sucked down the nourishment.

Michonne chose to ignore the untruth and Carol was grateful, swiping at her tears and running her hand across her nose in an attempt to cut her sobfest off before it got any worse.

"Has your milk come in yet?"

The question was so startling that Carol almost dropped Beau. She watched Michonne with narrowed eyes, recognising all the signs of a woman hiding pain, hiding grief but trying to move beyond it. Carol just didn't quite know why Michonne was making this effort finally with her.

"Do you really want to know?"

Michonne's slow shake of her head and the vulnerability exposed so powerfully in her dark, haunting eyes was so visceral it cleaved Carol's heart in two. She felt the tears brimming and stinging for renewed release, her own losses slamming into her, her own memories of another child she'd held at her breast like this killing her slowly even as she struggled to live with the reality of it. She could never forget Sophia. As much as she'd tried to put those sections of her past life in a folder that she'd filed away to look at another day—a day when she wasn't so bitterly helpless against the pain of remembering—she'd been unable to keep a lock on her emotions once she'd realised she was going to go through it all again. Bring another life into this world full of danger, have to protect him or her, do everything in her power to make sure this child had the legacy of life, not death. Not becoming a walker. Not _ever_ being lost and alone without hope. Not ever being abandoned only to turn up in a stranger's barn without any recount of the steps to get there. She refused to look into the emptiness of another child's eyes, refused to sit at the graveside of any more of her flesh and blood, and just as she looked like she'd fail at all those promises she'd made to herself and her belly-babe, Michonne, Glenn and Daryl had found her—saved her. She owed them everything. She owed them her life, and the life of her son.

With her free hand, Carol reached out and clasped Michonne's, the woman she'd always seen as strong and powerful now shaking in her grasp.

"Did Daryl ever tell you about my girl? About Sophia?"

Once again Michonne shook her head, trying to be covert as she swiped away a face glistening with tears and snot and tried to put back her usual stoic expression. As Carol wove her story, Michonne failed, and by the time Daryl found them, both had succumbed to a good crying session, Beau chiming in half-heartedly when he wasn't snacking. Daryl took one look at them both and cringed.

"You right to keep an eye on things out here?" he asked Michonne. He kept his gaze on his son, allowing her time to calm herself down, clean off her face and open the car door.

"Yeah." She was gone before he could say another word and Carol felt apprehension claw a path across her body, leaving various parts of her clenching with fear. Daryl swung himself into Michonne's vacated seat, still staring at Beau and then he lifted a hand and one long, calloused finger ran gently across his son's baby-soft cheek. Beau stopped sucking for a moment, casting his little eyes around looking for the distraction and Carol tried to angle herself closer so that he might actually see his daddy. Daryl shunted further across the seat and all of a sudden she could feel the heat of his body belt through her, warming her, setting her nerves on fire. The art of conversation was momentarily dismissed as they both fell under a spell woven by their son's existence, their history of friendship together, and the heavy sensation of attraction that Carol had thought was one-sided, forever her burden to bear alone. Daryl was more confident in her presence than he ever had been and it made her heart sing no matter how much she tried to tamp it down.

Beau finished feeding with a slurp and an abrupt jerk of his head, releasing an elongated nipple that seemed to catch Daryl's eye to the point where he was torn about what he should be looking at. Carol covered herself, taking away that temptation, and so he watched her rub the baby's back, trying to relieve the little body of gas.

"Can I do it?" He barely waited for an answer, his warm hands already reaching for Beau and within seconds he had him tucked under his chin, his hand rubbing soothing circles over the baby's back. There was an almost silent release of wind and before long Beau nuzzled into Daryl's neck and fell back to sleep, soothed by his father's warm skin and steady heartbeat.

"You're a natural," Carol admired, a happy, indulgent smile on her face as she watched them together.

"Nah. Just had practise with Ass-kicker."

Carol shook her head, refusing to let him downplay how special his bond was with the little boy that could one day grow up being more like his daddy than any of them could know. "He feels safe with you."

Daryl seemed weighed down by emotion as he swept his hand lightly across the fine hair on Beau's head before turning his intent gaze on her. "I'm gonna do my best to keep you both safe. It's all that matters now."

"Daryl, you're responsible for the group—"

"No." Sharp eyes fixated on her, his resolve invincible. "If shit goes south, I protect you two. That's it. I ain't gonna argue with you about who's more important—ain't no one more important than you. We're family."

Amazingly she felt numb, then a riot of sensation blasted through her system until her body was flooded with warmth, every nerve ending exploding with tingles that electrified her with hope. She wanted to be closer, wanted to crawl right up beneath his skin, wanted to remember so badly what it felt like to have his body pressed up against hers and his arms banded tight as steel around her, forcing her to forget everything in this world but him.

"Wanted to hurt Rick when he finally told me what he done. Kickin' you out like you was nothin' to him. Nothin' to me." He squinted down at Beau, the little boy's soft breathing making Daryl smile for the first time since he'd got back in the car.

A knot of emotion ached in her throat. "He didn't trust me anymore. I understood."

"The hell was there to understand?" Daryl ground out, his voice a heady burr of rough and sensuality that always heated her blood right there in her veins, that never failed to remind her how deeply she felt about him.

Carol peered up at him, the memory of that day with Rick one that had replayed in her mind so often she'd never forget the details. The smell of the fresh tomatoes they'd just picked, the crunch of the road beneath her feet, the expression of disgust and destroyed trust on Rick's face as he told her how very much she'd be shunned by everyone left at the prison—if anyone would be left at all. He'd prayed on her weakest links, delved beneath her protective layers for her triggers and used every one to push her so off-centre she never even contemplated going against him—going back to at least say goodbye to the girls and to Daryl. She shook her head now at her naiveté, hating herself for misjudging so spectacularly a man who she'd thought was her friend—a man she thought she could trust. "I forced Rick into making a decision," she admitted, her voice small with how wrong she now knew she was. "I wanted him to understand that he couldn't just keep hiding and leaving everything up to us. I wanted him to come back, and when he did, his first grand action was to banish me. I wanted him to decide, and he did. How could I argue with that?"

"But it weren't even you," Daryl exploded, calming only as Beau protested the sudden change in atmosphere with a whimper. Daryl soothed him with gentle rocking and back patting, and Carol sat there and waited. He tempered himself, waiting until he was calm enough not to disturb anymore of Beau's sleep. Siphoning as much serenity from her as he could, Daryl closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

"I was afraid," she admitted slowly, wanting to make him understand and earn the peaceful look he bestowed upon her when he at last opened his eyes. "When he attacked Tyreese, I knew he couldn't deal with knowing it was Carl. He wasn't dealing with anything at all."

"How did you know it was him?"

She smiled sadly and shrugged. "I did a timeline. Most everyone was sick. There weren't many of us left who had the opportunity, it had to be Carl. When I asked him, he told me what he did and Daryl, he made sense. I thought I was doing the right thing to protect him."

"I thought I lost you," he said, a crack in his voice bringing her once more to tears. She reached out and touched his face, cupping his cheek in her hand, her thumb resting against his bottom lip. With wonder she stared at him, so surprised that her loss had created this level of devastation for him, but she knew, if it was anything like what she'd felt, the pain was so heavy, leaving an ache that nothing on earth could soothe.

She pulled his head closer, amazed that her hand was once against touching his flesh, that she could look again into his eyes and see the various storms that brewed there, know his hands as the rough skin abraded her skin—eliciting pleasure rather than pain. Her tears fell wet and heavy as she remembered those long months where she'd been convinced her child would be all she'd ever have of Daryl, that he was gone forever to her. The miracle she'd been awarded was just barely sinking in, and the truth came tumbling from her lips so fast she had no hope of holding them back.

"I had no hope, Daryl. No hope I'd ever see you again, and I _hated _him for it."


	14. Chapter 14

AN: My very deepest apologies for taking so long to get this chapter out. It almost killed me.

Chapter fourteen

He wasn't afraid.

Carl had imagined dropping his bombshell in a million different ways, at a million different times. Every time, in his mind, he'd been courageous, forthright, levelling the group of their condemnation of Carol and returning the equilibrium to everyone. The only person he'd told outright was his father.

Finding out from his dad that Carol had been banished for something Carl had done had made him irrationally angry, but by then it was too late. There had been a deep satisfaction when he'd said straight out that he'd done it, that he'd hunted Karen and David down, stabbed them in the back of the head before they'd even noticed him in the room, then dragged them outside to burn. He'd been furious at the virus, scared about the damage it could do in a single day, and he'd taken out the threat before anyone else could get sick. Before anyone else could turn and be a cell away from ripping Judith's throat out. He'd done it and he'd felt nothing. He'd done what he had to do to keep them safe. And then he'd found out that Carol had covered for him and taken the fall. That she'd been _punished _for what he'd done_, _and now he knew how she'd suffered.

His dad had been tormented by his confession, but Carl hadn't cared. Had actually been pleased to see that spark of conscience kick in for an action so outrageously self-serving. He'd had no right casting Carol out without consultation with the council. Everything his dad ever said was a lie—everything he set up was a trap. Carl had been sick of it, was sick of it still, yet for the moment he was as caught as his father could have ever hoped he'd be.

The true gravity of his act hadn't really hit him—despite his father's broken cries for his lost innocence, or his angry attempts to stir his sense of right and wrong—not until Daryl and Tyreese had confronted him, with bottomless grief in their eyes yet compassion in their hearts. He'd gravely wronged them both—been the reason they'd equally had love torn from their lives—yet they'd reached out to him and offered him the forgiveness and understanding his own father had struggled this time to bestow. That combination had broken finally through Carl's defences, and he'd been forced to break before he could grow, and remember, and try to emulate the legacy of Dale's kind heart that Daryl had recounted and reaffirmed through one act after another, teaching Carl a new path, and opening up his heart to these people that continued clinging to the hope of survival together. That kept him under their wing and accepted him without censure. His family.

Surprisingly or not, Carol's name had been brought up more than a handful of times, and every time Daryl would look haunted and grey, leaving the room, and every time Carl was tempted to stem the flow of accusations, level it all out by confessing himself as the true murderer, but always Tyreese or his dad was clinging too close to his side and either loudly forced the focus of the conversation away from their missing group member or hauled Carl away for some urgent chore or another. Every chance that evaporated and left him in hiding was another one that made him feel hollow. That left him believing himself a coward. He'd go somewhere to be alone, to relish the quiet, and he'd cry through heartfelt apologies to a woman who'd been as close to a second mother as anyone could have been, and who was probably by then little more than the ghost of a thought. The ghost of their hearts. He'd never asked her to lie for him, never expected her to do such a thing even if he'd have thought of it—even if she'd owed him for the time she'd asked him to stay silent about teaching the kids how to protect themselves with guns and knives—but she had, and in return she'd been given a bagful of tomatoes and a death sentence and he'd been sworn to secrecy by the men that should have wanted his destruction. She'd done it because she'd loved him, because she'd cared about his dad, and that knowledge was the biggest punishment Carl had ever had. The lesson stayed with him, a burden on his back that he could never shed, didn't ever _want_ to shed.

Through all his plans and imaginings, there had never presented itself a scenario where he could tell the truth and things turn out well. Carl _knew_ this, but his guilty conscience directed him to do it anyway. He needed to tell the truth, needed people to know that Carol hadn't sullied her hands, hadn't changed so much from the essence of the person they'd always known her to be. She wasn't cold, not detached; she wasn't a murderer and never had been. She was a carer, their friend and protector, and his father had cast her out like yesterday's garbage. It hurt to hear Sasha's hate toward her, unfounded and wrong. It had wounded him to hear Maggie blame her again and again for Hershel's ultimate death, and even though he knew it was likely all misplaced grief, Carl was convinced it would help them all for him to step forward, like he'd done once before, and face the fallout of his actions. That it might give them some form of closure to shift the blame from Carol to him.

It hadn't turned out like he'd thought.

He'd been naïve, never really understanding why his dad, Tyreese and Daryl had been so determined to keep his guilt from the others. Before the words had fully taken a grip on the air, before anyone could convert their anger at Carol into confusion, Daryl had barked at him to go with his father and look for food, wood, water, and now he found himself walking side-by-side with his dad, the silence sitting heavily between them. They didn't walk too far before his dad's steps stalled, his hand going hesitantly to his head as he squeezed his eyes shut tight, breathing deeply, shaking a little. When at last he spoke, his voice was uneven, guided fully by emotion and Carl bowed his head and tried to hold back tears.

"What you did just now? That was a brave thing. The right thing. Your mom would have been proud of you."

Thoughts of _her _had become harder as he got older. The months following her death he'd felt afraid, ashamed. It tore him up inside that she might have died being disappointed in the way he'd behaved, and he knew that no matter how much he wished he could change things, it was forever too late to have behaved better, to have hugged her those days she'd watched him with longing and sadness—the same days he'd turned his back and walked away from his own _mother._ One of the only two people in the world who would ever love him unconditionally and he'd made her feel like he felt nothing for her but anger. As time wore on, though, he could let those things go, but then he succumbed to the fear that somehow she'd know what he'd become and it was something that even a woman with the burden of motherhood to love her child regardless of his sins would find reprehensible. That all the things he'd done, all the people he'd hurt would wipe away all the 'son' points he might have held and she'd hate the person he was growing into.

Her final words to him had echoed back and forth in his head from the moment he'd put the bullet in her brain to now, never releasing him from that tormented image. He'd tried to do what she'd said, to never do what was easy but to strive to do what was _right._ It was his job to protect his family, to protect Judith, and that horrible night when he'd taken two innocent lives, it _hadn't _been easy, it hadn't felt right, but nor had it felt wrong. He'd had to do the hard thing, look at two people whose names he'd learned, shared meals with, sometimes laughed beside, and then he'd taken their lives, burning their bodies to try and stop an infection from gathering momentum and sweeping thoroughly through their group until no one was left. Striking down his sister and making his mother's death a waste. He couldn't allow that; he couldn't let Judith die. And here he was again, faced with a decision that was either wrong or right, easy or hard, and then he realised that once he'd crested the fear that held him back from doing the thing that would hurt, the thing that was so frightening to even consider, making that hard choice fell into something like ease, leaving only one choice behind.

They were all gone now—the ones whose moral compass had been clear. Dale, Hershel, Andrea, his mom…and then Carol had been gone, banished for a crime _he'd _committed and never put right. It might have served Daryl and Ty's purpose that he keep quiet—it might have kept himself safe, but no matter what, he'd always felt it was _wrong._ With Carol back now, he didn't see why they wanted him to wait till they got to where they were going. He couldn't see why Carol still wanted to protect him—not when she had her own son now to shield and keeping the group against her, angry and resentful for what they'd been told she'd done, wasn't how things were supposed to work. He'd spied enough, and heard the man talk enough to know that Dale would never have allowed things to become like this. But to think his mom might be _proud _that he'd finally stepped up…

He jerked his head, feeling a well of emotion claw its way up his throat, pinch at his nose and tears finally sting his eyes. If she might be proud, then maybe he could deal with what he'd done.

His voice was strained, childlike when it passed his lips. "I hope so, dad."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You knew."

Her voice floated toward him like mist through the trees, twisting unexpectedly as it reached out toward him, and even though he kept his back to her, he stopped looking down at his pile of bracken and debris and just listened. His back straightened, muscles taut as he stared forward into the thickening woods, always staying alert for the moaning cries of the dead, and he waited for the condemnation he knew was to come. He and Daryl had worked it out, pretty soon after the group had finally all met up again. His grief over Karen hadn't allowed him to let it go, and then Rick's news that the killer was Carol had sat all wrong with him. He'd soon learned that it had sat all wrong with Daryl, too, and then they'd found themselves with something to prove and a murder to solve. Through that common goal they'd kind of bonded, but when they'd discovered the truth, they'd decided to form an alliance with the objective of not only protecting Carl, but guiding him as well. Rick seemed weaker to begin with, not able to impart the wisdom they'd known he once could to his child, and as Daryl had done before, they'd both given Rick time to heal. By the time he had, Tyreese and Daryl had made a pretty strong impact on Carl's life, and they'd continued trying to shape him into the kind of man they knew he could be.

He heard her steps now as she moved steady and sure toward him, stopping close enough behind him to make him nervous. Close enough to strike fear into the butterflies spooked to a frenzy in his gut. His shoulders slumped. He liked Michonne, didn't want her censure, felt almost fearful of her disgust. He turned slowly, his hands by his sides, deep breaths puffing his chest out in a wild rhythm, and only once their dark eyes clashed did he nod.

"Yeah. I knew."

"Thank you," she breathed out on a sigh and he actually felt his heart pound harder and faster in response. Her gratitude tricked him, pushed him a little off-balance, but then he stiffened his spine and accepted it, forcing a bit more calm into his normal balance.

"For what?" Head tilted to the side in confusion, his gaze tracked her as he moved closer—so close that he could almost feel her breath on his neck.

"For keeping it to yourself. Keeping him safe."

Tyreese nodded, emotion clogging his throat and he swallowed repetitively against it. "Me and Daryl, we worked it out a long time ago. Been trying to help him, teach him how it is. How to care and how to make decisions that help in this world, not just hurt."

"It must have been very difficult for you, living alongside the boy who killed your girlfriend." Her eyes were soft and he was fooled into accepting the shift, in fact welcomed this first really personal interchange between them. It was tempered with thoughts of Karen, with acknowledging the truth of Michonne's words. Some days had been excruciating and the anger that had continued dwelling in his heart had pushed him and pushed him until he just wanted to roar out the pain, until he wanted to _hurt _someone. Until he and Daryl had actually sat down and talked to Carl. Watching the boy speak, seeing the fear in his eyes for his baby sister and the remorse he'd felt at what he'd had to do—and there was no debating that Carl had believed to the very depths of humanity that he'd _had _to kill Karen and David, had to at least _try _to stop the spread of the virus—had helped Tyreese shift his entire perspective. It hadn't taken much to realise, talking to the survivors, that everyone from cell block D who'd come down with the virus as close to the time Karen and David had, were dead before they'd made it back from their run. The medication had saved those that had lingered—or most of them at least—but some had even turned before Sasha had entered quarantine herself. Tyreese had not a shadow of a doubt that Karen would not have lived, and in some strange way, that had made it easier to accept. Made it easier to see Carl as a boy who had struggled to do what he thought was the right thing, despite the rest of the group seeing it as wrong. Along with Daryl, their concern then had been to preserve the safety of Carl within the group—not fearing so much that anyone might slit his throat in his sleep, but preserving the emotional security of the group so that condemnation and bitterness didn't destroy the boy before they'd managed to enact change or understanding in his future actions.

Tyreese shrugged, looked within himself and knew he was now healed. Helping to shape the boy into a man with a conscience, teaching him that an awareness of doing the right thing encompassed a whole boatload of parallel actions and reactions that must be considered before the short course was enacted, had aided his jouney. "Did what we had to do. That boy needed some faith and some guidance. We did the best we could."

Michonne smiled and he stood stunned as he saw himself reflected within the pearl of a teardrop squeezed past an eyelid as she squinted at him through unusual sentiment. "You are good men. The both of you. I'm relieved Carol wasn't guilty of murdering Karen and David, and I'm glad you and Daryl could both be there for Carl."

Feeling unsure, Tyreese turned back to his gathered pile for the fire and started picking it up, filling his strong arms before finally facing back toward camp. "Think Sasha will be so forgiving?"

Michonne snorted a laugh, her face glowing with a smile that took his breath away. "Oh, I think you should probably run from her."

Chuckling, Tyreese couldn't help but think she was right. Still, as they headed back to camp, his mind spun with wondering how long he could keep her by his side. "Will you protect me with your sword? Her nails are sharp—not to mention her knees."

"Oh come on, you can take it like a man—" She stopped walking suddenly and like a well-oiled machine he dropped everything and looked around them at the trees, gripping his hammer confidently in his fist. She laughed again, and it was the most incredible thing he thought he'd heard in a good long while. "I'll protect you," she said quietly, looking him dead on before dropping her eyes, picking up some of his abandoned bundle and continuing on toward the group. Tyreese wasn't quite sure what had just happened, but for the first time in what he'd feared would be a forever filled with loneliness and apathy, he thought he might like to find out.

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Rick stood alone in the woods while Carl scouted around for wood for the fire, listened out hopefully for the tell-tale rush of a stream that may or may not be nearby, and contemplated just how many in the group had already known his son was a murderer. The word was too harsh and it burned in his throat. He wanted to rename it, reclassify it, and while he was unable to do that for Carol, he easily could for Carl, and the guilt of that ate him alive. Carl had s_acrificed_ their own for the greater good of their people, while Carol—a loving, nurturing woman the entire time he'd known her—had become the thing they feared most. A cold-blooded killer—a remorseless threat to his sanity, if not the group's lives. At least, that's what she'd confessed to, and as soon as that horrifying fact had breathed air, he'd thrown her into that stereotype, slammed the squeaky door shut in his mind and dismissed all the good and the positive he'd known she'd embodied before.

Carl wandered further into the woods, his head bowed and his body stiff with expectation. Probably worried about what his reception would be once they returned to camp. Rick felt no energy left within him to chastise the boy, instead was moved to contemplate the steps of protection they might need to employ now that the secret was out. Once upon a time he'd have had no trouble trusting them all, but the day the prison had been decimated and splinter groups forced out into the unknown, his ability to take the people he'd known intimately for almost two years at face value was diminished. He was wracked with guilt over this closure of himself, the retraction of his trust, but it was protective and something he was having great difficulty altering. Besides, right now wasn't about him—it was about Carl, and his son had done an amazing thing and Rick was determined he wasn't going to suffer for it. At least, not to the point where he feared ever standing up and righting potential wrongs in the future.

There was one thing he was sure of, however, and as afraid as he was about what this would mean for Carl's future within the group, he knew that Lori would have been so proud of Carl for standing up and taking responsibility. Hell, _he _was proud of his son for doing what he couldn't, what he'd actively been trying to prevent—returning Carol's life and her reputation back to her. It was a sentiment that Rick couldn't keep to himself, so he didn't, grinning indulgently at his son and for a brief moment he thought he felt the warmth of his wife at his side.

"What you did just now? That was a brave thing. The right thing. Your mom would have been proud of you."

Rick wandered closer to his son, swallowed at the broken yet hopeful quality betrayed in his son's voice. "I hope so, Dad."

"I know so." Rick struggled to keep the memories of his wife separate from the pain he still found overwhelming from her death. "Your mom didn't need too much for her to be proud of you, but this…" He trailed off with a shake of his head, losing himself in a moment of remembrance and then blinked, forcing himself back with a clap of his hand across Carl's broadening shoulders. "She wanted the world for you, Carl. This might not have been the world she'd imagined at first, but she wanted you to live, to survive, and to beat this thing. All we really have now are the clothes on our backs and the people that are our family beside us. We have to trust one another, to be there, and you…and Carol…" He didn't think he had the right words to truly express how much respect he had for his son, how much gratitude he felt toward Carol for trying to keep Carl safe, how much sorrow he felt for his own choices in handling the situation. Carol hated him and there was nothing inside him that could rise up and blame her. His behaviour in banishing her had been extreme, had been cruel and seeing her now, weaker, more emotionally vulnerable than he'd ever seen her before, his guilt crested new heights and came crashing down on his head, drowning him in hopelessness and regrets.

"I wish she were here still." Carl leaned against a tree, his gun in his hand, ready, prepared, but also relaxed and accepting that the world around him was nothing more than what it was. Rick nodded, his throat burning with the effort to hold his emotion back.

"Yeah," he croaked, his eyes stinging uselessly for something he couldn't change. "Me too."

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**AN: **This chapter was infinitely difficult to write. I really struggled with it, so I hope I got it right and you can see the struggles and the motivations that went into shielding Carl from the group as a whole. I'm confident the next chapter will be a tad quicker getting out! It has been brought to my attention that our little couple are yet to share their first kiss since being reunited…I would love to hear how you all think that might play out :D


	15. Chapter 15

**AN:** I knew that the last chapter would lose me a few readers, being so very heavy in other characters. Reviews were less than a third of normal. I wonder if this chapter might perk you all up again?

My love and thanks go to Atoizzard, Raizingkain2001 and Imorca for being such faithful friends and readers, helping me to polish this before it hits the public arena. The final line was a mixture of tweaking from Tam (Raizingkain), Imorca and myself. I hope you all find that it works!

Part Fifteen

"Can I hold 'im?"

The baby had barely released her breast, his little mouth continuing the sucking reflex until he shuddered a little and managed to stuff a tiny fist between his gums, continuing to slurp away. Carol grinned, remembering Sophia doing the same thing in those first early days of life, and then as if the memory of her daughter and the completely opposite example of enthusiastic Daryl as a father compared to Ed hit her, tears gathered and brimmed over her lower lids. She sniffled happily, grateful.

"Of course you can," she said, voice shaky as she tried to shuffle closer, trembling with a shocking jolt of awareness as the course sleeve of his jacket rubbed roughly against her exposed nipple while their son slipped gracefully from her arms to his. He seemed unaware of what had happened, so Carol quickly righted her clothing so she could stare unabashedly at father and son as Daryl made googoo eyes at the baby.

"Hey there, little man," he cooed and Carol almost melted right into her seat. The car was a little stifling, with her rapid heartbeat and over-achieving pulse, so while Daryl was distracted she wound the window down no more than an inch, just to let the air circulate. It cooled the interior of the car and Beau shivered, Daryl's reflexes so quick that he'd bundled Beau up securely in his blanket so the baby could barely manage a squirm. "There you go, all nice and tight." Beau didn't look to mind, his wide eyes seemingly staring transfixed at his father while Daryl gaped back in awe. It was a moment she wished she could keep forever, recorded on photographic paper so she could look back at it whenever she wanted. Whenever the days were hard and something beautiful was needed to push one on through.

Without warning, she burst into tears. Letting go of all the fear, the insidious doubt that she could manage to keep herself and her baby alive all those long months she'd felt him growing in her belly, the terror when she'd accidentally been hemmed in by walkers and only a fierce storm of strength empowering her to get out of there alive—so much pain and worry were instantly wiped away by Daryl's presence, by her inclusion back into the group, and it was too much. Burying her face in her hands, Carol felt the wall she'd built up to protect herself crack down the centre and the force of that wall crumbling around her took her breath away, crushed her heart and wiped away every contingency plan she'd painstakingly thought out, decimated her hardened shell constructed so that the absence of her friends and the man she loved didn't completely destroy her. She wondered now, though, if maybe being found wasn't even harder. The relief almost demolished her alone; her heart had craved the connection she'd always shared with Daryl, the friendship, but her other senses had been deprived for too long. Just seeing his face—the way he squinted even when the sun wasn't in his eyes, as if to only see strong emotions aimed at him or toward others through a filter that would keep him protected. To see the small patch of grey finding its way into the scruff on his face, to be lost in the dreamy contemplation of his lips, soft even during the harsh winters and even more severe summers. She'd only ever tasted him once and his flavour had been strongly tainted by too much whisky, but even that had intoxicated her, made promises to her heart that it had almost broken her to release him from. And now, it all came rushing down on top of her, crushing her, grinding her under its weight, and before she realised it she was gasping and sobbing but with one of his arms around her, hauling her in close, those same tender lips whispering soothing words into her hair.

He held her in his arms while still cradling Beau, and even though his mother was losing it, Beau stayed nestled in the warmth between their bodies, his little face as complacent as he'd been since his birth. Carol was horrified at the amount of snot and tears she was shedding onto Daryl's shirt, but she couldn't seem to stop. Eight months of shattered dreams, of hoping and striving for the best without really believing it wasn't too heavy a burden to shrug off, and now she was back amidst the group she'd once loved and inside that group there were strangers, and people who'd condemned her, who might now condemn Carl, and she dreaded it. She hated the uncertainty, the suspicion, the breaking of bonds she'd been so invested in. It wasn't what she thought she'd wanted, but being alone wasn't what she'd wanted either. She'd wanted Daryl, needed him as fundamentally as she'd needed water—she now had him. She wanted her child to live, needed him to grow up big and strong, taking on this world and beating it—so far, so good. She wanted peace and at the moment, as much as Daryl could provide it for her, she had it. Why wasn't she satisfied?

Despite his obvious commitment to their son, his vow to protect them both, Carol thought she might be done with the ambiguity. He'd corrected her mistaken assumption that the night he'd come to her had been because he'd really wanted Maggie—and she believed him, truly—but the gap between believing he'd come to her for _her _in her head and the yearning for so much more in her heart was wide. So wide it seemed unfathomable that things could change. Incomprehensible that their relationship could bend out of the formation of friendship into something resembling a partnership. A model based on the sensual journey of lovers.

Astoundingly, Beau drifted off to sleep in the middle of Carol's crying jag, and his astonishing ability to block everything out of his little baby world was so unexpected that Carol couldn't help but stutter a strangled laugh through her tears. Daryl seemed unaware of the turmoil in Carol's mind, happy enough to soothe away her emotional outburst with feather-light caresses on her back and quiet words in her ear.

The urge to speak was tremendous, forcing her to formulate words she'd not thoroughly thought out first. "I'm sorry."

"The hell you sorry for?" He drew back carefully, his thumb reaching forth to wipe away her tears and like magic, after a cute little wiggle in his seat, Daryl's red do-rag appeared, and he held it out to her.

Carol blinked as she took it from his hands, laughing quietly as she tried to clear away the devastation on her face, thinking maybe it would work because everything about the red bit of cloth seemed to have magical uses, and right now Carol felt like she deserved a bit of magic. What was she sorry for? For letting Rick kick her out, for not coming back when she'd realised she was carrying Daryl's child within her body? Was she sorry for not embracing him that night he'd finally come to her, shared his body with her, instead letting her insecurities about not being enough, not being the right person he'd wanted thrust him away? Or was she sorry for covering for Carl, preserving his freedom and his father's sanity? Or maybe, deep down, she was sorry for causing a rift so deep between herself and Daryl and Rick that she just could never see a way to repair it.

The torment must have shown on her face. Before she could utter a word, Daryl's hand had cupped her face, his fingers threading through her hair and gently massaging her scalp. "You don't gotta be sorry for none of it," he said, putting her mind at rest and leaving her feeling slightly dizzy from the combination of his touch and the raw huskiness of his voice. He hadn't spoken to her with that tone very often, only once that she could vividly recall—that night where he'd slowly taken off her clothes and shown her how varied his talent with his tongue was. Now that tone scraped against her nerves, but it also coated her with down, felt heavy, protective, like he could take her out of the cold and cover her with enough of him to prevent her from ever feeling the wind on her skin. He was comfort and he was sensuality, he was safety and he was yearning. He was everything she'd wanted or needed and while she'd always been patient, waiting for him to see them like she did, her absence had cut through the process and now he was just _hers, _and it had been Daryl that had made it so.

He was wrong, though. She had to be sorry for something, she wasn't completely blameless—this disaster had befallen her from trying to do the right thing, but it had definitely been a disaster with far-reaching consequences. The confusion gathered momentum, the knot between her brows deepening and without really considering that she was panicking, she was staring at him with some kind of urgent appeal beckoning to him.

"I have to be sorry," she said, her voice the first sign that she was beginning to lose some kind of battle as it shook in her throat. "It's all wrong, Daryl. He kicked me out and I was alone, and then I realised about the baby but I couldn't go back. All I wanted was to survive so I could make sure he knew about you, knew what kind of man his daddy was. All I wanted was to be back with all of you…" Her voice seemed to peter out as she grew too weak to admit how very afraid she'd been all those months, how fear had kept her alive, kept her surviving day after day but kept her small, and cold, and terrified that the things she wanted, the things she was _doing_, would never be enough. She didn't want to admit to being weak because she'd sworn she was strong—she'd _had _to be strong, but in reality it was weakness that had left her lying on that bed, passed out with her baby barely expelled from her body, covered in blood and fluids. She'd been weak and she'd almost failed.

"Ssshhh," he hushed, and as the breaths started to stick in her throat, catching and crunching together until they caused a building ache in her chest, he hauled her back into his body, his words a welcome rumble in her ear. "Everythin's fine. We found you, our boy's doin' good. _You're _doin' good." She froze as she felt the warm, wet scrape of his lips against her temple, the heat of his breath puffing against her cheekbone as he pulled away just far enough to drag his lips down her cheek, the heady sensation of it forcing her lids to gather weight and then they fell, eyelashes settling along her cheekbones. "_We're _good," was the last thing he said before the first light touch of his lips swept across hers, telling her something she'd barely ever allowed herself to hope for. He was careful with her, caressing her mouth so gently, nervously and she remembered that this man had always skittered away like a nervous cat whenever she'd made any kind of physical advance toward him, when she'd peppered their conversations with innuendo. Laughter had been the best reaction, but hoping he'd take it a step further had been something she'd never allowed herself to consider, knowing that if they were ever going to take the next step, it would be all on her. Even the night he'd come to her fresh from the wedding hall, drunk enough that he'd tripped coming up the stairs and ran into the doorway as he'd tried to fumble his way into her cell, she'd still had to take the lead, encourage him toward the process that had led them to the little boy now couched between them.

She felt dizzy as he delved into the hidden wonders of her mouth, seeking her taste and her secrets, and as the slow, languorous trail of his tongue convinced her she might be running a fever, Carol succumbed to the moan she had no control over and tried to move closer. By instinct alone her fingers found a handful of his hair, the pads of her fingers loving the sensation of his scalp and then the smooth hair follicles. Every nerve-ending exploded into glorious life as he dragged her as close as he could get her without endangering Beau's health, her free hand bracing against his thigh, feeling the tense muscle beneath the flesh as her fingers flexed and took an unconscious grip. When time seemed to stop, and the pain and her fears receded, he pulled away from the messy, wet tangle of their lips, sucked her bottom lip into his mouth then grinned when she gasped, her fingers digging harder into his thigh.

"Ain't lettin' you go again. That's a promise you best get used to." His growl stirred forgotten memories of safety and comfort, then they were pushed aside as new needs rushed front of centre, of love and desire and then he was back to teasing her, nipping at her lips, sucking the bottom one in between his teeth and scraping just short of pain across the tender flesh. His tongue flickered against the aches he caused, seemingly apologetic but then voraciously chasing the thoughts away as he claimed her again, and by the time she'd thoroughly learned his style, explored him thoroughly, she was sighing against him, content and reassured.

Their combined breathing had fogged up the windows, even with the window cracked partially open, proving that outside was descending into the chill of night time. Carol sighed, a little embarrassed, not quite believing she was making out in the car like something reminiscent of a high school date but so relieved to finally feel like she knew where she stood with Daryl—and it was a place she liked. A blush high on her cheeks, Carol tucked her head against Daryl's shoulder and comforted her overwhelmed senses by running a finger across Beau's hair. It was sandy blonde, a surprise when she'd expected him to be darker. His little button nose entranced her, his rosy cheeks that were starting to gain a little padding as her milk began to come in with his constant feedings, his full, beautiful lips shaped like a bow and Carol felt her heart expand to almost breaking point with love—not just for her son but for the man who'd come back to them and made them his without her even having to fight for him. He'd declared it, with his words and his actions. Carol was so happy that her eyes prickled this time with happy tears. His hand came up to capture hers, dragging her away from Beau's silky soft locks and he laced his fingers with hers.

They sat in silence as the oncoming night's darkness finished its fall across the car. The others in camp were mostly quiet now—at least, Carol couldn't hear any further arguing or accusations. No more of Maggie's crying. A gentle light spilled from the fire they'd worked up and Carol stirred carefully against Daryl, her limbs feeling stiff and sore from sitting around in one place so much.

"You wanna go out and sit 'round the fire for a bit?" he asked, his voice heavy with weariness. "Might do you good to stretch out some."

She nodded and smiled at his thoughtfulness, preparing to open her door and leave the car when he stalled her for a moment, diving forward and planting a quick, soft kiss on her lips. She was so startled she couldn't move, just stared at him with amazement and eagerness written all over her face. "Stay close to me, an' bring my crossbow. I'ma carry little bullseye here right on over."

She quirked her brow as a startled laugh tore from her. "Bullseye"

He kissed her again, fire and fun dancing in the reflection of cool, blue eyes. "Ain't no other name's gonna fit since I scored a hit dead on to your lady bits first time. Perfect Bullseye."

And he dared to wink.

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AN2: I owe massive thanks to Imorca for the suggestion of Bullseye here. I asked her opinion on a cutesy name Daryl could call his son, and well, it was so obvious that I am just stupid for not thinking of it first. Another example of stupid…I never even realised the irony of Daryl having a son called Beau! I have a son called Bowen, and he was a 14 week prem and the name meant small victorious one. He was a whopping 2lb, 6oz so I thought the name more than fit. These things were going through my mind when I chose Beau (as well as Southern applicability etc), not that the poor boy's father is renowned for his crossbow! It might be best if you don't go assuming too much about me. LOL.


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